Okay We're on an Island
by B00kNerdGirl
Summary: Richard Grayson signed up for a school trip, not for his class getting stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere, with their every move broadcasted across the world without their knowledge. Can Richard get out of this without his secret persona Robin revealed? Also I'm really bad at deciding what genres stories fall under so mine might be wrong...Bad at these summaries too...
1. The Arrival

**AN: Young Justice happened to be the first fandom I really got into, so now that I'm trying out the whole writing thing it just made sense to me that, duh, I have to do a fic with Robin in it. I loved the Danny Phantom stories where he's stuck on an island or the Ghost Zone while dealing with his class. So this is like a merger of a character and a story idea that I love. Also I don't really know if many of Dicks classmates were ever mentioned so I'll probably be making most of them up. Reviews are appreciated, I love having the chance to better myself as a writer, so please don't be shy to really tell me what I can improve on.**

 **Here we go!**

 _Ouch!_

"...and so if we examine the substance under a..."

 _No!No!No!_

"...exactly how it reacts to our variable..."

 _Stop moving!_

"Mr. Grayson."

 _Ow!_

"Mr. Grayson."

 _Did someone say something?_

"Mr. Grayson!"

"Yes ma'am!" Dick pulled away from his internal moaning to the present where he found his whole class staring at him, including the teacher.

"I've said your name several times now, Mr. Grayson. Is everything alright?"

 _No everything is not 'alright', I fell out a window last night!_

"Everything's perfectly fine, I just dozed off a moment." He gave her his best innocent, as Wally put it, 'I'm cuter than Bambi' look.

She seemed to buy it. "Alright than, please give the class your full attention in the future."

Dick ignored the urge to grimace and instead tilted his mouth into a smile. "Of course." She nodded and returned her attention to the rest of the class. After a moment any curious glances stopped and Dick was able to drop his facade slightly.

In truth, he really shouldn't have been in school at the moment, in fact Alfred wouldn't have let him go to school if he had known what Dick, Robin at the time, had gotten himself into while patrolling the previous night.

* * *

 _Robin was retracing his route back to where he was supposed to meet Bruce. He had finished combing through his portion of Gotham, stopping a few gangs, intervening in several muggings, the usual. Him and Batman hadn't been expecting anything big, after all, the usual suspects were recently locked up in Arkham and he doubted they were in the mood to escape yet._

 _For Gotham it wasn't that bad a night. By making his way across rooftops he had access to a breeze that would normally be cut up by all the buildings, he could hardly smell the pollution._

 _Robin always pictured Gotham as a beautiful place in a morbid sort of way. If he could look past the crimes and the garbage he was able to see the way that moon washed over the distant water or how the world could light up in the presence of the countless buildings._

 _When he'd voiced these thoughts aloud to his team Artemis asked him, with the straightest face possible if, "You've been concussed one too many times."_

 _He probably had but that wasn't the point._

 _Lost in thought the Boy Wonder almost missed it._

 _The thud and the indignant shout that followed, even though he was going past an_ abandoned _warehouse district._

 _Cautiously_ _he stealthily crawled through a broken window and crouched on the rafters where he could look down below._

 _It was the Penguin. He was surrounded by a group of thugs, two of which were in the middle of going at it with one another. Robin figured that was the noise that had drawn him in._

 _He evaluated the situation. The Penguin didn't have any concerning attributes, he could take him without breaking a sweat, as for the thugs? as long as he didn't slip up it wouldn't be an issue._

 _He didn't need Batman for this one. With that in mind he dropped catlike from the rafters and landed on a beefy man's shoulders, while his signature eerie cackle echoed around the space._

 _Robin was doing fine, taking out foes easily._

 _Punch._

 _Duck._

 _Flip._

 _Side kick._

 _It was second nature._

 _Of course he hadn't accounted for the little girl. When one of the thugs held her, a kid who could've been in elementary school, by the the scruff of her dirt smeared rosy pink jacket and tossed her out the window everything went downhill._

 _Robin dived out the window without hesitating and just manage to pull her small form to his chest before they hit the ground. He hadn't had the time to do anything except brace himself and he couldn't help but be thankful that instead of landing on the concrete he had crashed through a rotting wooden crate._

* * *

He hadn't mentioned it to Bruce or Alfred and instead gone to school, knowing that he had too many absences as it was. He was really regretting that decision now. He was pretty sure a scrape on his arm had rubbed the wrong way against the ace bandage under his sleeve, a bandage that had come loose when a kid two times his size had slammed into his shoulder walking down the hall.

He just hoped the blood wasn't leaking through.

After finishing his final morning class he sped away towards the bathroom, spending the beginning portion of his lunch hour re-bandaging his arm, where his blood had just started seeping through the white cloth haphazardly covering it.

Dick also pulled up his shirt and examined the array of bruising and minor cuts that spread across his torso. The few stitches he had done himself held tight and other than the pain nothing was seriously concerning.

Armed with the knowledge that he would be perfectly fine, both from detection and from his injuries themselves, Dick made his way to the lunch room where his friend Barbara had saved him a seat. Artemis and Bette Kane were also sitting at the table.

Barbara flagged him down and when he slid into his chair her trained eyes seemed to notice the tell-tale slight tensing of muscles that screamed out 'hurt'. She eyed him with a scrutinizing gaze.

"I was about to think you weren't going to come, what held you?" She asked.

"Oh, got caught spacing out in class, Mrs. Fields held me back." He lied smoothly. Barbara still looked unsure but one pointed glare from Dick was enough to send the message, _drop it._

Bette, completely oblivious, leaned forward. "Did you hear the news, Dick?" She asked excitedly.

"What?" Bette's eyebrows shot up and her lips twisted into a smile.

"So you _haven't_ heard?" She teased, holding out exactly _what_ it was he hadn't heard. "Apparently there was a breakthrough regarding Robin's real identity."

Artemis, Barbara, and Dick froze in unison.

Bette prattled on, "Yeah, someone reported seeing him wash out his hair." Dick was understandably confused, because there was no way that he would have been washing his hair in his Robin suit where someone could have seen. "You know how everyone's always thought that his hair was really dark or black? actually sort of like yours, well it _isn't._ It's actually _blond_."

Dick sighed in relief, trying to ignore Barbara's snickers and Artemis's snort of amusement. "Well even if Robin is a Blondie I don't see how that's really going to help them narrow down the search." Dick pointed out to Bette's crestfallen realization.

Artemis was looking at him funny, like she had forgotten something that had to do with him and she couldn't remember exactly what it was.

Dick knew exactly what thoughts she was wrestling with. The fact that his secret persona, Robin, spent so much time with her, as well as his civilian mask Dick Grayson at school was something he had been both distinctly worried and excited about. On one hand, having someone close to his own age besides Barbara, Wally, and Roy knowing his identity would be great, on the other, Bruce wouldn't be happy with the amount of vulnerability that came with more people knowing his secret.

Dick was groping around for a subject to distract her and possibly save her from death by daddy bats when Bette came through again splendidly.

"Well I guess I hadn't really though of that. But on a different note, do you think Bruce is going to loosen up a bit and let you go with us for the class trip?" Dick couldn't help but wish that Bette had picked any question rather than that.

He winced. "Well I've given an arm and a leg trying to convince him but he isn't sure it's a good idea, with all the security risks and everything."

"Oh my gosh, at least you have a chance of going on a trip, our homeroom teacher completely shut down the idea of going _anywhere_." Barbara complained as Artemis nodded in agreement. "You're so lucky that you guys have Mr. Robinson. We're stuck with Mrs. Scott." All four of them shuttered at the though of the vulture-like woman who was so wrinkled and sour she could have passed for a prune.

The conversation turned to complaining about the schools staff, however Dick couldn't help but think in the back of his mind that it really would be fun to go on the field trip, do something normal for once. Something normal for a different kid of course, Dick didn't feel like jumping out of any more windows like he could usually be found doing.

As he went on with his day ignoring waves of pain he decided he was most definitely going to convince Bruce and Alfred to let him go.

* * *

"No."

"Absolutely not."

Both Bruce and Alfred answered at the same time following the ten minute presentation on the benefits involved in allowing Dick to join his class trip, as well as how to counteract the problems that could possibly arise.

"But Bruuuuuuce! Alfiiiiiiie!" Dick couldn't help but whine. "I really want to go on this one!"

"Dick, its a no, that's my final answer." Bruce made to get up from the armchair facing his power point but Dick wasn't done yet. He had tried to play fair, but Bruce wasn't giving him much of a choice.

"Okay, but can I have a hug first?" Dick asked holding out his hands innocently. Alfred and Bruce exchanged suspicious glances, knowing this was likely a trap, however Bruce had always been a sucker when it came to Dick so he kneeled down and hesitantly opened his arms.

Dick flung himself forward and in seconds was whispering sharply in Bruce's ear as the larger mans eyes grew wider by the second. Alfred could only make out snatches of the conversation but he caught the gist of it after a sentence included the words, 'bat-computer', 'photographs', 'encrypted', and 'Selena'.

"...Alfred Dick's going on a school trip.'"

* * *

 _Three days Later_

Pedestrians made their way through the streets of major cities all over the globe, be it night or day, children played with friends or snuggled under comforters as they drifted of to sleep, adults grumbled on their way to work or got ready for nights out on the town with friends. It was a completely normal day, a day no one would predict could have gone so wrong.

At exactly 12:00 in Gotham suddenly everything, electronics, machines, cars, spluttered to a stop. Everything, everywhere, turned off in a worldwide blackout.

People screamed or looked around in panic. They had been living in a world filled with the impossible for some time now and knew that their perspective could be tipped on its axis whenever an alien race or meta-human had a whim.

Even the watchtower shut down momentarily, however thanks to a few electricity based superheros they were able to get the life sustaining systems running.

For five minutes citizens panicked, governments acted in barely concealed chaos, superheros searched for the cause in confusion.

And then they stopped.

In unison every device with a screen flickered to life with a blank background. People from all over turned to their TV's, dug out phones from coat pockets, or looked up at digital billboards. Dark, thick text spread across the screen as a subtitle and a electronically modified voice began speaking, the language of the subtitle changing depending on where in the world you were viewing from.

 **"I used to be human. But now I am a god."**

"Metahuman." Superman growled from the Watchtower.

The voice continued. **"We live in a new world, where some are strong and some are weak. Humans are weak."**

People exchanged looks with family members or random passerby's on the street. It was never good when a meta-human got to big for his britches and decided to attempt world domination or something along those lines, and even though most everyone trusted the Justice League to take care of whoever it was this time they couldn't be so sure. Clearly whoever the perpetrator was they were powerful.

 **"Some humans have decided they have what it takes to oppose gods, such as I. Starting now I am putting a stop to such ridiculous notions. My next message is for you Batman, how close by is Robin at the moment?"** People turned and whispered to each other nervously. If this guy thought he could challenge the bat and the bird he was off his rocker, and both Batman and Robin didn't seem to have the best track history with insane villains.

 **"To all lowly humans out there, I'm putting you in your place. I will begin my purge of those inferior with the hero you all have become so attached to, resistance is futile."**

Wonder woman couldn't help the worry that gripped her. This man, whoever he may be, had the power to disrupt all technology in the world, including the watchtower. Who knew what he could have access too, nukes, codes, anything at all. All of this power and he was after Robin. The little boy who had visited the watchtower with his overprotective mentor and won over the hearts of all the Justice League. Who had called her Auntie Diana

She was terrified for the bird.

 **"I've intercepted a class on a trip and, following the story of these students, you will all be enlightened, you will understand humanities weakness."**

"Hold on a minute." The Flash said angrily from the Watchtower. Immediately every screen in the world showed him and he faltered for a second before regaining his composure easily. "What do you mean, 'intercepted a class on a trip'."

 **"I mean exactly that. This class has been taken hostage, and there is nowhere in this world you will be able to find them."** That gave people a pause, what was happening to those kids? How old were they? _Who_ were they? The confusion was palpable.

 **"Let us begin."** The screen turned black before switching to a scene.

* * *

A tall girl about fifteen years old, with curly blond hair and tan skin, was leaning against her airplane seat as she stared out the window. Besides her a muscular boy with light brown hair and a square jaw yawned loudly. As he stretched his arms above his head and down again one wrapped around the girls shoulders slyly. She shoved him off.

"Nice try Jason."

"Aw, come on Bette-baby! Just give me a chance." He smiled at her revealing shiny white teeth aligned in a perfect grin.

"No way, I'm not being the school womanizers pet."

Members of the audience gasped, recognizing the girl. Bette Kane was the daughter of a successful Gotham business man and many were familiar with her from the countless magazines that featured her, modeling newer trends.

Bette's father, who was in the middle of a meeting gasped and leaned closer worried that somehow his daughter had been caught up in all this. "Bette." He murmured sadly.

The two teenagers engaged in a rocky conversation with one trying to flirt as the other complained. The camera panned away from them and slowly zigzagged in between teens doing normal everyday things.

Parents and friends gasped as people they knew were revealed and then tried to hold out on the hope that those they knew wouldn't be a victim of whatever was planned.

Bruce knew. As soon as he saw Bette Kane he knew that the entire reason the class was being targeted was because whoever was behind all this knew Dick's secret identity.

The camera settled on a young boy who looked smaller than everyone else with jet black hair and captivating blue eyes.

Everyone knew who this was, Richard Grayson, Bruce Wayne's charity case. Whisper's spread all over the planet referring to the same thing. Just how would _Bruce Wayne_ react to Richard being part of all this?

Richard Grayson was currently working his way through a book filled with complex equations that left most viewers dizzy. He easily penciled in answers halfheartedly.

All of a sudden he tensed and immediately made a grab for the bag in the seat next to him, startling everyone. Before he was able to find whatever he was looking for the plane gave a sudden lurch and began experiencing extreme turbulence.

Children screamed and grabbed onto nearby friends as Richard shot up out of his seat and ran up the isle towards the cockpit, but before he could make it a blinding flash filled the interior of the plane and the scene changed, amid the worlds terror and anticipation.

* * *

The camera showed a beach with a thick forest surrounding it. On the beach still bodies were flung randomly into the sand, strew among luggage. They all looked awful, hair tangled and splayed along their pain filled grimaces, limbs laying in unnatural positions, blood sluggishly soaking into the sand.

Some of the people watching couldn't help but turn away in disgust, while others with stronger stomachs searched for any sign of life. Children frowned in confusion as parents hasty hands wrapped around their eyes.

For the better part of a minute nothing changed besides the strangled breath of some teenagers. Until finally, a girl with mousy brown hair groaned into her arm, which her head had been fortunate enough to land on. She started coughing and slowly sat up to look around.

You could tell when she realized where she was, when the horror filled her hazel eyes and she sobbed into a hand clasped around her mouth. Her eyes flicked from the cut on her arm, her surroundings and her unconscious classmates.

The girl suddenly screamed and jumped to her feat as she jumped over to the nearest person, who was also a girl with black hair and a heart shaped face.

"Ava! Get up! Please wake up!" The first girl screamed desperately as she rolled Ava over onto her back and swept the hair out of her sleeping face.

Ava didn't move so the brunette laid her on the ground carefully and skidded over to the next body, a wiry red haired boy with an array of freckled on his face. She grabbed him by the shoulders and started yelling again, "Oh God, please! You have to wake up! Cameron, come on!" This time she had better luck. The boy's eyes squeezed tighter together because of the suns glare and he moaned, his brown eyes flickering open anyway.

"Riley? What's wrong-" He stopped abruptly as his eyes focused on the scene around him. "Oh my God."

His scratched and bleeding hands scrambled for purchase on the sand as he flung himself back from the puddle of blood that had pooled out of a nearby girls sliced shoulder.

"Wh-what?" He swiped sand away from his eyes and brushed impatiently at a nosebleed. "Riley, what the hell happened!"

"I don't know!" The girl sobbed a hand clasping itself over her mouth as her stomach roiled with trepidation. "Oh God, just, just help me!" She heaved herself over to the girl with a slashed shoulder and flipped her over onto her back. Blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth and her facial features tensed.

The boy, Cameron, clenched his fists but rushed to the side of the same brown haired boy that had flirted with Bette Kane on the plane. "Jason! You gotta wake up, c'mon man, now isn't the time for a nap."

The doctor's watching winced as the kids manhandled their injured peers in their desperation. Shaking an unconscious person before deducting the cause of their situation wasn't advisable.

Jason seemed to be better off than most of the bodies. The only noticeable injures were the scrape running from just under his left eye to the curve of his chin, and a vivid array of bruising covering his calf from where the bottom of his pant leg had torn away.

He snapped awake quickly and gripped Cameron's upper arm forcefully, hazel eyes wide.

"What the-"

"No time!" Cameron cut him off, heaving the other, taller and more filled out, boy to his feet impatiently.

Jason took in the scene. His jaw dropped open and he stood frozen, mouth agape, and until Riley's panicked voice cut across his thoughts. "Boys! Come on! Help me check on the others."

Jason strode off towards another kid, as Cameron and Riley worked their way through their own sections. They each called out updates as they went.

"I think Chris is good! But he won't wake up..."

"Avery has a pulse...Her arm's pretty busted up though..."

"Lizzie's waking up!"

"...I think that's a pulse."

"Ugh, my head..."

The comments penetrated the air, bringing relief and horror to those watching at home or clustered around screens and phones on the street.

No one was prepared for the earsplitting scream. Riley clutched her arms around herself hysterically, tears spilling over and dropping on to the body bellow. It was another girl, pasty white with blood oozing through her ripped shirt. Crimson soaked outwards onto the sand, covering Riley's hands and knees.

"A-A-Anna!" Riley wailed. "Sh-she's dead!" Her sentences ripped through the air, broken by great hiccuping sobs. Riley reached out and tugged Anna into her lab, revealing a gaping hole to her side where it looked like something had ripped through her, scooping out her organs in an instant grisly death.

At home Anna's little sister stared at the TV in confusion as her mother fell against her father, gripping his jacket with an unbreakable grip. Neighbors could hear the echoing howls from her mother. No one went to see what was wrong. The TV told them what they needed to know.

After a moment where only Riley's trembling shoulders moved Cameron's hesitant voice broke the silence. Moisture in the corner of his eyes was visible but he straightened as said in a somewhat strangled tone, "We've got to keep going, Riley. The other's need our help."

"Cameron's right, pull yourself together Ri." Lizzy said from where she stood gingerly on a throbbing ankle, her golden brown shoulder length hair hanging in strings of sand and grime, darkening it's hue.

"I-I you're...you're r-right." She pushed herself away from Anna and wiped her blood onto her pants. For the most part she only smeared the liquid more and red still clung around finger nails and creases in her palm, but Riley ignored this, instead making her way back to Ava, who she had woken up next to.

"A-Ava, it's time to get up now. P-please." Ava's mouth parted and her nose flared. The heavy scent of metal suffocating her until she sat up straight with a gasp, one hand clutching her temple, black strands of hair weaving around her fingers as they tentatively probing her skull, grimacing.

"Bette's good!" Jason's announcement was followed by a groan from said girl. When the viewpoint panned over to include her Bette's feature's caused some to grimace. Swelling had overtaken a blackened eye and a puffy cut ran across the bridge of her perfectly shaped nose. Her lip was split and a slash ran through her shirt down the arm with blood dripping down her skin.

"Glad your awake Bette-Baby, we need some help."

Each student was slowly awaken, similarly battered. Each time the audience winced at the damage done to the kids, turning their own children away.

The Justice League was frantic, filled with angry yelling and multiple walls being punched, cracks filtering out across walls as the frustration, the _uselessness_ became overbearing. Superman paced back and forth angrily as other league members came to him, seeking answers. He turned each one away with the same response. _I don't know._

He did know that he needed to watch the screen though, because he needed to know what had happened to Richard Grayson, or as he knew him better, Robin.

The warning from the man at the beginning of the showing echoed in his thoughts. He was going after Robin and Batman, was this it? Was this where Robin would end? Lying in the sand surrounded by dying classmates?

He closed his eyes. Batman-no-Bruce would be destroyed. Robin was all that held Batman up on some nights. The nights spent dodging through allies and tying up crooks, stopping gangbangers and psychopaths. Batman needed his Robin, he was Batman's heart, and if Batman's heart was gone Superman didn't want to know how that would affect him, the Justice League, and in turn, the world.

Everything would be ruined.

It seemed that something had heard his desperation though, along with other league members aware of Robin's true identity, because the camera panned over to watch as Lizzie stumbled towards a small black haired boy, curled up with his knees against his chest.

"Hey-hey Richard." People all over the world watched with baited breath. This kid's dad was a big deal, they had a feeling that if anything happened to Richard Grayson someone was going pay. They had no idea.

Lizzie reached out to touch the boys shoulder, when suddenly she couldn't. In a blink of an eye Richard was feet away, shifting into a defensive position, halfway into an almost crouch he froze, eyes flicking from side to side taking in his wounded classmates.

"Liz?" He frowned. "The plane..."

It seemed that answers weren't important though because Richard suddenly caught sight of a boy named Thomas, his hands clutched around another boys shoulders as he shook him back and forth, the unconscious boy's head lolling around like a rag-dolls.

"Stop! Jeez, Thomas, you'll kill him if you shake him like that with a head wound."

It seemed the boy was right and doctors rested easier as they watched Richards small form hobble over too Thomas's side. Richard gently laid the other boy down before shrugging off a black blazer. The same type that all the kids seemed to be wearing. He bundled it up and slid it under the boys shoulders and head.

The boy was darker skinned, with dark hair and long features. Thomas watched in confusion as Richard examined the boys head.

"Is Elijah okay?" Thomas asked. Richard ignored him, instead muttering under his breath.

"...No skull fracture..."

"Uh, Richard?"

"One sec." Richard looked around for a second before his gaze landed on Thomas's mostly intact jacket. "I need your jacket, quickly."

Thomas hesitantly pulled it off, wincing as it caught on his skinned elbow. "Thanks." Richard barely spared him a glance as he determined the cleanest part of the blazer and then held it up to a cut above Elijah's eye. The dark liquid slowly saturated the coat.

"Here." Richard grabbed Thomas's hand and placed it firmly where his had been moments before.

"Woah, um, dude I don't really think I can-"

"Apply pressure equally to the entirety of the wound, if the side of the cloth soaks through fold over the jacket and hold it on top of the other part, don't remove it whatever you do."

"Oh, uh okay, but-"

Richard left and instead moved to where Riley was having trouble with another classmate.

Classmate to classmate he roamed, showing those who were aware and mobile how to care for the unconscious or how to deal with injuries. He seemed to really know his stuff, even providing answers for how to deal with a broken arm.

Occasionally Richard would make his way over to someone and even before he reached them the way he walked changed. His shoulders slumped and his steps became less brisk. Each time he made sure to search their neck and wrist, but he always shook his head negatively, signaling no pulse. Each time students sobs cut through the air and tears spilled over before being brushed away impatiently or dripping onto the sand. Richard never cried, just bowed his head and made his way towards the next injury.

Things were becoming less chaotic. Most of the kids had gathered in a circle, nursing cuts and bruises, cutting swift glances at the motionless bodies over strewn farther down the beach. Richard was making his way to the last person he hadn't checked yet, followed faithfully by Chris, a tall sandy haired blue eyed teen with wide shoulders.

"Is that Mr. Robinson?" Chris asked. The man was scrunched uncomfortably, his legs folded under his torso and blood running down his frame, covering multiple clusters of bruises.

"Yeah. The only other adults on the plane were the pilots, and they weren't wearing the school uniform." Richard answered as they reached the teacher, his curly black hair encrusted with sand.

Richard knelt down next to the teacher and tilted his head to allow access to his neck. Doing this caused blood to gush freely from his mouth and people leaned closer to their screens. This was the only adult they'd seen so far, the pilots no where to be found. These kids would need adult guidance and blood from the mouth was never a good sign. Richard probed along the flesh for a second before giving a relieved sigh and settling his weight back against his heels.

"He's alive."

Chris sighed as well. "Your really good with this whole first aid thing, right?"

Richard hesitated before nodding. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"So whats up with him? Why isn't he waking up?"

Richard ran his hands through the mans curls. "It's here. He hit his head, there's a bump right there. It should be okay but he'll be out for a while."

"How long?"

Richard raised an eyebrow. "I'm not a doctor, I have no idea."

A dull flush crept up Chris's neck, hardly noticeable over the assortment of scratches that lined under his chin.

"...Whatever. What do you want to do for him?"

Richard frowned. "Well I don't want to move him, he might have something wrong with his brain..."

Seeing the thunderstruck expression cross Chris's face Richard backtracked.

"I mean, it's probably like a concussion or something, either way I think we should go check on everyone else, it doesn't look like they're doing too good." Both glanced up where they could hear raised voices.

"Yeah, yeah I guess we should go over...But just leave him here?" Chris looked guiltily down at their teacher.

"Well normally if he was unconscious he'd be heading for a hospital, but I don't see one around here, unless, you know, those trees are hiding a city."

Chris sighed.

"Okay, let's head up."

The two boys trekked across the sand, giving a wide berth to the body of Anna, who was staring unseeingly at the sky.

People all over grew somber at the twisted broken teenager.

They watched as Richard and Chris joined the group, walking right into an argument.

Immediately the camera panned around to show a girl who hadn't been named yet, someone who had woken up later in the chaos.

It was a slender girl, who was obviously attractive, with carefully sculpted eyebrows, a makeup smeared face, and tan skin.

"You, kid, is the old guy dead or what?"

A few kids winced at the phrasing.

Riley scowled. "Oh my God, could you be any ruder, Lindsey?"

The pretty girl, Lindsey, glared at the brunette heatedly.

Before their exchange could get any tenser a voice interrupted them, coming from a small black haired boy noticeably smaller than anyone else. Richard Grayson. "He's alive, just unconscious."

Lindsey clenched her teeth. "Okay then, math geek, what's next? I literally chipped a nail and my leg got all banged up. You fixin' it?'

Adults all over rolled their eyes. It was only a matter of time, them following a group of rich school students, before they came across a snob. As people mentioned this others reminded them that she was going through a highly traumatic event and should probably be given some slack.

"Your leg should heal in time and the nail will be fine." Lizzy snapped.

"She did kind of bring up a good point." Cameron pointed out reluctantly. "We need to figure out what we're going to do next."

Some of the kids looked terrified while others looked completely baffled.

After a moment Chris spoke up. "Hey, Richard, you're good with this sort of thing, I mean the first aid and all that, what are we supposed to do?"

Everyone turned to the younger boy, who looked like a deer caught in headlights.

The audience waited, on the edge of their seats, contemplating how it is this boy who had proven himself quite resourceful would handle this responsibility. Right as Richard Grayson opened his mouth to reply the screen went black.

 **"These are humans."**

He was back, the voice that would be haunting nightmares along with the images of dead teenagers.

 **"Humans are week, easily destroyed. They are my puppets."**

Justice league members curled their hands into fists angrily.

 **"Tomorrow, at exactly noon in Gotham this same feed will play. Watching this will ensure your understanding of who is the superior inhabitants of Earth. Remember to tune in."**

Screens flickered off than back to whatever they were focused on before the interruption.

 **AN: So that chapter was getting pretty long, the others will probably be shorter. I know its not as good as it could have been if someone else was writing the idea, but I gave it my best shot. PLEASE leave a review telling me how I did, even if it's just constructive criticism.**

 **That's all, thanks for reading!**


	2. The Planning

**AN: Well here we go, next chapter. Thank you for any one who'd reviewed, f** **avorited, or followed and all that jazzy stuff. Please make sure to remind me of anything I messed up on, or if there is anyway I can better my writing.**

 **Also for medical related aspects of this Fan Fiction I'm sorry, I'm not a doctor, just using stuff from online and common sense. Which might actually be wrong. Oh well, we'll see. Anyway, that's all.**

 **Enjoy! (Or not, up to you, blah blah blah...)**

Fingers clicked furiously on the keyboard, darting back and forth over keys in quick strokes. A kind of fog hovered over Bruce's line of sight, clouding over his vision. He shook his head slightly and squeezed his eyes open and closed.

"Master Bruce, perhaps-"

"No, Alfred." Bruce answered, already knowing what the butler had been about to suggest.

He didn't have time to be indulging himself in sleep or eating, or anything pertaining to stepping away from the batcomputer where he had sat faithfully through the entirety of yesterday's afternoon, throughout the night, and that morning.

He did, however, reach for the thermos that sat besides him, tilting the drink up he let the steaming black liquid spill into his waiting mouth, gulping down the coffee. Alfred watched him, the familiar sight of his master downing his sorrows in his work wasn't comforting, not at the slightest, just familiar, something he'd count on always.

The butler's emotionless mask flickered into a grimace. Normally it would be Robin who managed to distract Batman long enough to leave a case, but Robin wasn't here.

Silence in the cave, the only movement, Bruce's fingers and the continuous ticking of the second hand from a clock hung on the wall.

Bruce's keen eyes flicked towards the ticking, taking in the way the the minute hand hovered over the nine, standing bold against the white background, the hour hand approaching the twelve.

His typing became quicker, steadier. They were running out of time and he still hadn't found anyway for helping Dick. Bruce clenched his jaw at the thought, Dick navigating how to protect his classmates while guarding his secret identity. He hadn't even made any move of awareness, some sign that showed he had recognized the fact the world was watching.

He needed to save Richard, some way, some how, because there was no way he'd ever be able survive without him. Robin; the only reason Batman stood after some nights out fighting crime. Dick; the boy who was relied upon by himself and Alfred for bringing laughter and joy into the mansion that had grown cold after so many years.

Another glance at the clock.

Thirteen minutes.

More typing.

Nine minutes.

More coffee.

Eight minutes.

Swallowing thickly, ignoring the desperation threatening to boil over.

Six minutes.

Alfred stepping closer to the bat computer in preparation.

Three minutes.

How was he right now? Would he find out his bird had died already?

A minute.

He stopped typing unknowingly, pondering his options.

Thirty seconds.

If their secrets were revealed could he keep Dick safe? Where would they hide?

Fifteen seconds.

Would it turn on at exactly twelve?

Ten.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

The screen flickered with an odd sort of finality.

* * *

 **"Good evening ladies and gentleman!"** The voice grated on Bruce's nerves. He automatically curled his hands into fists, Alfred adorning a patronizing frown as he stared sharply towards the computer.

 **"I notice that today many more of you insects have gathered around your devices in preparation for my return."**

People all over the globe shifted guiltily, surrounded by others they had met up with to witness the next segment of the classes story.

 **"The weakness of your kind never ceases to amaze me."**

Members of the Justice League scowled. This presumed meta-human would have once been a human himself. His hypocritical behavior confirming the belief that power in the wrong hands could effectively corrupt anyone.

 **"Nonetheless, we will continue where we left off, spectators of the trials man and woman may endure."**

"They aren't 'man and woman!' They're kids!" Green Arrow cried indignantly, the video flickering over to show the green clad man, hands tightly wrapped around his bow.

 **"Oh, but not all are children, as you know indeed, Green Arrow."**

The man in question immediately closed his mouth with a snap. His actions leading to the revelation of Robin's identity would not benefit his life expectations.

The same thoughts ran through the heads of other superhero's, mostly the founders and their most trusted inner circle.

To the common people of Earth however the mans statement caused outrage.

"One knocked out teacher doesn't make up for stranding a group of teenagers!" A woman yelled heatedly from a mass of people in New York City. The screen changed to her, ignoring the countless identical outbursts that rang throughout the globe. She immediately recoiled, slinking back into the depths of the crowd.

The screen shifted back to darkness.

 **"Watch closely now, my pets, for we soon will delve into the confusion and suffering that plagues your kind. We will reveal the weakness of even those who rise above expectation!"**

A pause.

 **"Enjoy!"**

The screen faded into a moment of darkness before changing into vibrant motion.

* * *

Expecting the continuation of yesterdays scene the audience was unprepared for the viscous onslaught of fluttering images, switching in a summary with a mismatch of words and phrases from the previous showing.

 _Bette Kane, sitting besides Jason in the plane._

 _"Nice try Jason."_

 _Images of faces, screwed up in concentration or generally relaxed rushed past, including a memorable shot of the girl, Anna, from the previous day, laughing happily with Riley._

 _The shot lingered on Dick Grayson._

 _Screams echoing, overlapping each other in a brutal quoir of shock and agony, petering out, replaced by snatches of conversation._

 _Mangled bodies lying on the ground._

 _"Please! Get up!"_

 _Shifting over prone bodies, glaringly different from the sand they lay sprawled across._

 _"Cameron, come on!"_

 _A snatch of Cameron's face._

 _"Oh God."_

 _Lizzy warily standing on a busted ankle._

 _"-Pull yourself together-"_

 _Ava struggling to wake with Riley hovering over her._

 _"P-please!"_

 _Bette shaking her head against the fog leftover from unconsciousness._

 _"-Bette-Baby, we need some help."_

 _Lizzie approaching Richard Grayson._

 _"Liz? The plane..."_

 _Richard weaving through the injured._

 _Moans blurring together._

 _Richard showing Thomas how to deal with Elijah's head wound._

 _"-I don't really think I can-"_

 _Richard and Chris approaching the still form of Mr. Robinson._

 _"-Go check on everyone else-"_

 _Lindsey cradling her damaged nail tenderly while glaring in the direction of the two boys._

 _Shots of confused expressions._

 _Zooming in on Richards frozen features as Chris asked,_

 _"-What are we supposed to do next?"_

The footage flickered with finality before settling on Richards face as he responded, it would seem they had caught up.

The bombardment of images left the audience reeling, blinking uncertainly.

"Intense." Green Lantern commented from the Watchtower. Others around him nodded.

They quieted down as Richard began to speak.

"I-uh, I'm not sure it's the best idea for me to be giving out instructions." He shifted his weight from foot to foot hesitantly.

Lindsey scoffed. "I knew it. He's just a math geek."

A frown etched its way across Richards face.

Bette scowled and stepped forward. "He might be a math geek, but he's the one who helped all of us when he saw we were hurt!"

"Whatever." Lindsey scoffed.

A boy, all muscle, to her side suddenly spoke up. "He's still a circus freak, guess we'll have to hope he doesn't lead us to the same sticky end as everyone else he's ever known." The teenagers seemed well adjusted to the insult, including the boy it was directed at, however members of the audience gasped as others watched in confusion.

"Shut up, Cole." Bette said, her voice lacking the conviction to back the threatening statement. Cole's angular eyebrows pulled closer together but Bette clearly had some pull. This seemed to be enough to persuade the boy to drop it. Lindsey didn't look so easy to please.

* * *

Crowded streets all across the world were buzzing with the rumor's of the past, stories spread of how the youngest Grayson came to live with Bruce Wayne.

"Yeah, his parents died, fell off the trapeze, the kid watched it all."

"Jeez, you'd think that if they were in the circus they'd be able to actually do the act without dying."

"Show some respect, they're dead, ya know."

"I heard it wasn't an accident, sabotage or somethin'."

"Yeah, Robin and Batman put the guy away. One of the first times Robin came out."

"Shh, the kids are sayin' somethin'."

* * *

Bruce Wayne himself was staring, frozen, at the screen. It wasn't the worst thing that had every been said to his bird, he knew that much, but he couldn't help the swell of anger directed at the oblivious teenager.

Dick had never mentioned problems with bullies, he was Robin after all, but Bruce had done some digging on occasion, sifting through incident reports typed up by the school nurse. When he confronted Dick it always ended the same. In denial.

Reading the unaffected body language of Dick as well as his peers told him all he needed to know, this kid, whoever it was, had done this before.

He wouldn't be doing it again.

* * *

As Lindsey crossed her arms pointedly across her chest a shorter plain looking girl wearing the remains of a tattered uniform tapped her on the shoulder.

The girls amber eyes switched from Lindsey to Richard Grayson. Her dirty blond hair, styled into a longer in the front bob, swished teasingly while she shook her head back and forth.

" _What,_ Kathie." Lindsey snarled.

The girl shrunk back automatically. "I, uh, I really don't think now is the time for this."

 _Finally,_ was the general consensus of the world. Now wasn't the time to be bickering over trivial matters, there were injured people and tasks to do if they wanted to stay alive.

Lindsey's jaw dropped open to reply and her features screwed into a distasteful glare, but a sudden addition to the conversation stopped her right where she'd started.

"Lin, Kathie's got a point." All eyes turned to Jason. "I mean, everyone's tired, I know I'm hungry and my leg hurts, maybe we can just shelf this for now."

Lindsey's mouth tilted into a simpering smile. "You're right." She slipped over to Jason's side, laying her head against Jason's chest, under his left shoulder. His arm automatically curled comfortingly around her.

The audience thought back to what Bette had said on the plane. She'd called Jason the 'school womanizer' it would seem she had the right idea about him.

Lizzie plopped down in the sand without warning, golden brown hair nestling in the crook of her shoulders and jaw.

Riley settled down right next to her after a moment of contemplation. She winced as the cut on her arm was jostled. Richard eyed the injury and made his way over to sit next to her.

Thomas sat next, brown eyes sullen and filled with despair. One by one each of the kids dropped, forming a circle right in the middle of the beach.

Richard had taken a strip of Riley's blazer and begun wrapping the cut, muttering angrily about the environment and lack of supplies.

"O-okay, uh, guys." Elijah mumbled, voice still fogging and actions still clumsy and uncoordinated. "So, wha-at now. Group leader? Or somethin'?"

The group of kids eyes each other.

"I'll do it!" Lindsey said immediately.

Bickering ensured easily following her announcement.

"No way!"

"You don't know the first thing about survival stuff!"

"I mean, she's not the worst."

"Ugh, I hate this idea, please tell me this isn't actually happening!"

"Dude! No!"

"Guys. Hey! Guys!" Over the mob of voices the black haired boy struggled to be heard.

The voices flickered out, gazes twisting to land on Richard.

"We don't really need a group leader right now, just a...monitor."

Lizzie dawned a look of contemplation. "Who's it going to be? You?"

Richard shook his head. "Even if I did appoint myself in charge and everything, I doubt you'd all listen to me."

No one answered, agreeing silently. Richard smirked slightly. "Exactly. We need someone you'll all listen too, someone who doesn't really have an issue with anyone else."

The audience watched with slight confusion. So far it had seemed like Richard had done a good job showing everyone what to do, taking care of everyone's well being.

"I think Chris should prod the group along in the right direction, control the discussion, you know?"

Chris looked surprised. He glanced around, searching his classmates faces for any animosity. When he found none he shrugged. "I guess, I mean, if no one has any complaints?"

When no one spoke up he nodded. "Uh, okay, well then, what do you guys think our first step should be?"

Lizzie raised her hand hesitantly. Chris awkwardly pointed too her. "Uh, yeah Lizzie? What's your idea?"

"I think that maybe we should make a list of things that need to happen, then put them in order."

Chris chewed on his lip, looking out at his classmates for their views on the idea.

Thomas shrugged. "Yeah, that makes sense."

When a chorus of agreement occurred Chris nodded. "Does anyone have a, um, pencil or something? I can write a letter in the sand to remember what we've already said, so we don't forget."

Cameron flipped a string of red hair away from his eyes, reaching behind him and picking up a stiff stick, a foot tall and as thick as a finger. He tossed it to Chris.

Chris snatched it out of the air and tested the durability by wiggling the top half side to side. When the stick proved sturdy enough he nodded.

"So, things we need to get done. Go." The audience noticed that with each word Chris grew more confident, authority filling his tone.

Riley leaned forward. "Well, we need shelter, right?"

"That's going to be hard with all of us." A blond haired girl spoke up from Cameron's side.

"I know, Pattie." Riley answered. "But we still need it and everything, right?"

Chris nodded. "I'll, um, put it on the list." He dug the edge of the stick into the sand, tracing out the letter's **SR** in a blocky thick text. "Anything else?"

Jason spoke up next. "I don't know about any of you but I'm still hungry."

Chris nodded, writing down **FD** next, for food.

"Okay, what else?"

The ideas came easily from then on.

Water.

Supplies.

Fire.

Rescue signal.

Exploring.

Medical care.

The audience watched as the kids named various things that they would need to get done and they couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed for the teenagers. It would be a lot of work, and so far they had no idea if any rescue would be coming.

"Guys." It was Richard Grayson again. "I know this hasn't been an issue yet, but we might not be alone on the island."

His comment brought a whole new round or worry to the people watching, as well as the circle of classmates. "What do you mean we might not be alone?" Kathie asked, eyes flicking to the treeline and back nervously.

"I mean, there could be predators or something, in the tree's, we don't know how far this island goes or what's back there."

After a moment of silence Chris nodded stiffly and wrote down the abbreviation for protection.

"Okay, can anyone think of any other immediate concerns?"

A pause.

"Alright, well this is what we have so far." Chris looked down at the list.

 **SR** (Shelter)

 **FD** (Food)

 **WR** (Water)

 **SS** (Supplies)

 **FE** (Fire)

 **RS** (Rescue Signal)

 **EG** (Exploring)

 **MC** (Medical Care)

 **PN** Protection)

He read it aloud.

"I think its all good." Ava said, everyone nodding along.

"Okay. Now what order should we put it in?" Chris asked. "What's our top priority?"

Richard immediately spoke up, as if it was an automatic response. "Supplies. The ocean is right there, and we have stuff all over this beach which can be swept away. We should collect it, anything could be useful."

Chris looked around before starting a new list, writing **SS** on the top.

"Wait a minute!" Thomas exclaimed suddenly, thunderstruck. "We're _right by_ the ocean."

A pause.

"Uh, duh." Lindsey said. "Isn't that obvious?"

Thomas brushed her condescending words aside. "So, like Richard said-"

"Dick." Richard muttered, barely able to be heard by the audience.

"-the stuff can be swept away, at like, any time. Right?"

Alarm dawned on the teenagers expressions, as well as the thoughts of the viewers.

Chris glanced harrowingly from classmate to classmate, clearly feeling the responsibility pushed on his plate. "Uh...um, we could, uh, split up? Have a group of us go collect whatever they can, the rest of us keep planning?" He cautiously examined the reactions of the group.

Nods and hums of agreement followed his idea, to his obvious relief.

"I can go." Jason said, one hand trailing down the pattern of bruises on his leg, a minor injury in comparison to some of the kids he sat amongst.

"Me too." Cameron volunteered.

"I, uh, I can too." Kathie squeaked, blushing in embarrassment when her words caught, stumbling over each other.

"I've got it." Bette decided, to the surprise of many people. Who could have predicted it? Daughter of a big deal business man, ready to throw herself into the grunt work. The girl fiddled with her shirt sleeves, scrunching them up to her elbow and rolling her arms to check for any give on the fabric.

Chris nodded. "Okay, I think that's all we need for now."

"'Kay, let's go guys." Bette said, pushing herself up, off her knees. The others followed.

Some of the teenagers scooted forward, filling the gaps left in the circle by the less populated groups departure.

"What else do we need?" Chris questioned. Using one hand to prod the sand into a more uniform sheet.

"Water, right?" Riley asked. "Isn't that what they usually start with in the reality TV shows?"

Shrugs answered her.

"No." Teenagers turned, confused, towards Richard Grayson, the younger boy frowning in thought.

"Uh, what? Haven't you seen any movies, Circus Freak?" Cole said, flexing his muscled unknowingly.

Richard rolled his eyes, surprisingly not intimidated by the older boy.

"I've seen the movies, but we have three days to get water. Weeks to get food."

"Yeah, well sorry, but three days doesn't exactly feel like an eternity to me." Avery said.

Richard nodded. "I know, it's not. But three days is a lot more than a few hours, which is exactly how long until night."

"So?" Lindsey asked in confusion.

"So, I don't know about you, but I have no idea whether it's going to rain tonight, or how cold it'll be, or if there's any nocturnal predators-"

"Okay, we get it circus freak." Cole grumbled.

Richard ignored the jab entirely.

Chris hesitated at the name, but did nothing."So, Richard, what do you suggest we do?"

"We have a larger group of people, let's use it to our advantage. Split up, tackle the most pressing matters immediately, deal with the rest in the morning."

Chris chewed on his lip thoughtfully. "I like the idea, what about you guys? Anyone disagree?"

No one did.

"Okay, okay." Chris did some quick thinking. "Lets make columns, in order of necessity. Then, after we split everything up into groups, we can decide who's the best pick for each task."

"Sounds good too me." Ava decided. "I think that since we've already got people doing supplies we should put that under the first column."

Chris scratched four lines into the sand, forming three spaces, where he wrote **SS** in the area, for supplies. "Okay, what else?"

Thomas rubbed a hand through his curly brown hair, arm resting on the back of his neck. "I, uh, I think maybe we should put medical down? I mean, I'm not that bad right now, but some of you guys are still bleeding pretty bad..."

"Okay, yeah." Chris agreed enthusiastically. "That's a good idea." He scribbled a messy **MC** under supplies for medical care.

"We've got to put shelter there too." Lizzy remembered. "Like Richard said, the animals, and cold, and weather, and all that."

"Yeah, but where do we put it?" Pattie asked, twisting her hair in a spiral before releasing the ends and letting it bounce, falling back in place. "Is that the most important thing right now? Or is it secondary in comparison to fixing us up and gathering all that junk off the beach?"

"IssImportant..." Elijah said immediately, voice still thick and head still rolling to the side. "I don' wanna sleep with animals."

"Yeah, I'll agree to that." Lindsey said. "I don't want any creepy critters snuggled up to me while I'm trying to get my beauty sleep."

"Yeah? Well I could say the same thing, but I'll still be stuck sleeping next to you." Riley snarled. The two broke into a fit of bickering, Lizzie and Cole joining in on their preferable sides.

"Hey, guys." Chris tried.

The groups voices rose in volume.

"Guys."

Riley leaned forward, teeth bared.

"Guys!"

"What!" Four necks snapped around eyes gleaming as they centered on a bewildered boy.

Chris cleared his throat. "So, I, uh, I write it in as important?"

Lindsey sighed. "Isn't that what I just said?"

Chris scratched in **SR** under the important column.

Avery raised a hand, shrugging as she got odd glances. "What about fire?" I mean, its something we'll need, for a signal fire and warmth, light, and all that other stuff. Does it go in the important column or secondary importance column?"

They pondered the question for a moment. "Secondary." Richard said. "We can deal with fire in a few hours, for now the medical care and immediate concerns that can't wait are what should be classified as important. If the need comes we can just..." He searched for a word, features twisting until he settled for a term awkwardly. "...huddle for warmth."

They all fidgeted for a moment, the audience imagined the awkwardness of cuddling with their classmates and winced in sympathy.

Chris wordlessly wrote **FE** in the second column.

"Water and food should go there too, right?" Patty asked. "Since we have some more time until we need it."

It went into the second space under the abbreviation for fire.

"So that leaves exploring and a rescue signal." Cole said. "I take it those aren't at the top of our to-do list?"

The group nodded, Lizzie and Riley more grudgingly than most.

"I can put those in the third section?" Chris suggested.

"Yeah." Richard agreed. "We can deal with those if we survive long enough to get to them."

The sun was out, it should have been light, but at Richards words a darkness seemed to take hold of the circle on the beach. A circle of terrified teenagers whose certainties in life had just been uprooted and tossed away.

"Uh, yeah." Chris cleared his throat. "On that happy note, should we split up the jobs?"

The group of teenagers groaned, rubbing aching limbs, with heads perched against slumped arms and eyelids hanging lower than they had been earlier.

"So, is that a no?" Chris wondered aloud.

"Why don't we go grab the scavengers, help finish up the job, then we can run over the list." Riley said.

"Well that would work, but I think our list, which is scratched into _sand_ might not last that long." Richard reminded them.

"Then let's just etch it into some leaf, or wood or something." Thomas said. "Chris and I can run up and do that, you guys can go help out with the supplies."

Everyone nodded and got to their feet, brushing sand away from their clothes and bending their necks against the cricks that had formed.

Richard nodded. "Lets go."

 **AN: Okay, that might've been the boringest chapter ever created, sorry. I promise that the action will kick up soon...Thanks for sticking with it if you made it all the way down here to the authors note.**

 **Also, I ended this chapter here because I really felt like it was getting dragged out...it isn't done for the world/audience or anything. I'll try to keep these chapters coming for anyone who's actually interested, please review if you have ideas or would like to point out something I did that I can do better.**

 **Bye now!**


	3. The Collecting

**AN: Here come's chapter 3! So I'm gonna start this one out at Dick's point of view, but from about where the last chapter ended. Mostly, just to get a view of how Richard is thinking about all the events that have unfolded so far. I haven't actually written the chapter yet and instead I'm just tapping away on the author's note, but I'll bet I'll switch it back to audience-third point of view thingy in a while.**

 **Thanks for listening to a babbling idiot for the last half a minute of your life that you will never be getting back.**

 **Also, thank you for anyone' who's favorited, review, followed and whatever else you can do on this website, it's what motivates me to get out and type up each chapter.**

 _ **Dick/Richard/Robin/One of the Best Characters Ever: Point of View**_

He could feel the thousands of sand grains give underfoot, shifting out of the way for his boot as he trudged through the minerals. He pondered thoughtlessly the idea that wherever he went the grating sound of material crushed in his path would be an unchangeable certainty, a reliable constant wherever he was.

The thought brought him comfort. A curl of warmth unfolded in the pit of his stomach, fainter, but reminding him of the happiness that glowed from within when he chewed on Alfred's famous cookies.

"Hey! I need some help over here, it's wedged in good." It was a feminine voice, a sound ringing with the tone of frustration and strain, over the roaring rush of water as it rolled against the beach and the squeals from classmates in the freezing waves. Dick glanced towards the comment's direction, taking in the scene and hopelessly fighting the tug of his lips corners. It forced his mouth into a revealing crescent smile, despite the overbearing tension and despair hanging over himself and his classmates.

If only days before someone had told Dick that he would soon witness Bette Kane hunched over in the knee deep shallows surrounding an assumed deserted island, soaked with the spray of salt water, and scratching at the tangles of seaweed strewn through her blond head of hair he'd have thanked them for the amusing conjured image but left the conversation, safe with the knowledge that it was entirely out of the realm of possibility.

But here she was, scratched hands clasped tightly over the sodden edge of a half submerged suitcase, tugging on the item. "I've got you Bette-Baby." Dick watched as Jason easily sidled up besides her and seized the other end of the suitcase. With a cocky grin he and Bette pulled together, leaning backwards.

A sickening squelching sound that reminded Dick of the time Wally had convinced him and Roy to climb a wall with suction cups filled the biting air.

The suitcase inched out of the ridge it had created in layers of grime, sending both Jason and Bette careening backwards with momentum.

"Add that to the pile." Bette ordered, turning to grasp a stray scrap of vivid floating fabric. Jason lugged the suitcase towards a mount of various items towered atop each other further up the sand away from the ocean's grasp. He tipped it on top of a stack of luggage, spaying a shower of water and saturated clumps of sand.

"You just going to stand there all day, Richard, or are you going to help?" He started at the use of his name. _It's Dick,_ he thought, and imagined that if he had spoken the words aloud they would have been filled with annoyance and exasperation, just like every other time he'd said them to his classmates.

Ignoring this, he looked towards the voice, and found Cameron, hands dripping with water, looking expectantly at him.

"Oh, yeah, I was just getting the lay of the land." He answered sheepishly.

"Sure." Cameron snorted as he turned back to his work.

Richard cautiously approached the water's edge. He eyed the dress shoes from his uniform distastefully. Looking around he noticed Cole's face screwed up in frustration while he upturned his shoe and allowed water to slosh out, thinning until all that was left was a steady drip.

Richard allowed a small smirk to cross his features, a pleasure short lived as his gaze wandered to the stretch of beach where they had woken on. Bodies of classmates still lay with blood trickling sluggishly in shallow pools around discarded limbs. He turned away from the sight, ignoring the nausea that always came with seeing the dead, no matter how many times the process continued.

The sight reminded him of the body of their teacher, Mr. Robinson. He looked over to where the man sat, back resting against a tree next to their classmate Elijah. They'd both retired when Mr. Robinson had stumbled over to the group after they decamped from the circle and made their way to the water's edge. Richard had checked for a concussion, then sent him to the sidelines.

Thinking over it for a moment he'd then sent Elijah to rest next to him, thinking that until his hand-eye coordination improved it would be better to keep him where he couldn't get into trouble.

Though protesting weakly both had left for the shade procured by the leaves hanging from winding branches.

Richard plopped onto the sand, kicking away his shoes and tugging off his socks. He bunched the fabric into two balls and stuffed them unceremoniously into the dress shoes, leaving them folded against the tips where his toes would go.

He shrugged his arms out of the blazer of his uniform and rolled his pant legs up his shins. And so there he was, standing before the turquoise horizon in rolled up black dress pants and the torn, dirt stained rag that had once been a white shirt, one of the many replicas housed in his closet. Dick took a moment to think that this would be the perfect moment in one of the old survival movies that played on rerun's during the night.

Only, in the movies Dick knew that the survivors were portrayed as strong individuals, a steely glint to their eye that showed they were up for any challenge the pile of rocks they were marooned on could throw at them. Dick didn't have the same look, the same way of carrying his weight proudly with his shoulders forced back into a gallant position.

He felt wrong. Off. Not the type of wrongness when you answered a question with an incorrect reply, he had a feeling of something rooted deeply in his core giving off waves of unpleasantness. Wrong.

He had known what it was, as soon as he startled awake on the beach with Lizzie hovered over him. The weight of his belt, a weight he'd relied on since he'd started as Robin, had vanished. The absence of his belt brought on an undeniable panic that he had fought to gain control of as he roamed through injured classmates.

But he took the lack of his supplies with a grain of salt, thinking to himself that there was no way the belt would be lost in plane crash, it was too well hidden and placed strategically so that he _wouldn't_ accidentally loose it, under any circumstance.

It wasn't a normal plane crash, he knew that much. He mulled this over in his thoughts as he and his classmates made his list, analyzing the events that had unfolded and deciding different precautions he'd make. He didn't get very far, just deciding that until he knew more he'd play along with whatever game was unfolding, while keeping his eyes open.

He pushed these thoughts aside, instead diligently scanned the nearby water. A shape caught his eye, a glimmering shine, warped by the liquid flowing over it. Richard eased his feet into the water, marveling over the icy chill.

Straight back and fists clench he waded in further, bending down to study the object. It was hard to tell with the reflection of spiraling light from the waters surface but Richard judged it to be a size that would fit on a palm. Richard reached down, cold rolling over his elbow easily, and scraped his fingers along the splinters of driftwood, sand, and groups of seaweed that lined the ground

His hand brushed against something, and he withdrew his hand when a sharp twinge of pain throbbed through the flesh connecting his thumb and pointer finger. A cloud of blood gushed into the sea, merging and sifting through liquid.

He bent straightened up, examining a shallow slash with confusion. The pain dimmed, he was used to it enough that it barely made an impact. Dick plunged his other hand through the water in a fist, releasing the tension that curled his thumb around his fingers and scooping the item up in a cautious grasp.

Blood ran freely in a mellow drip down on hand and wrist. He waded up to the beach examining the object scrupulously as he trudged. It was a simple pocket knife, with a two and a half long blade and a base for it to fold into. He sighed in relief. A knife, no matter what type, would always be counted on as a needed survival tool.

He walked the knife over to the stack, deciding that the last thing he needed was the blade coming loose from its holder and its unbalanced weight tipping it into the path of a classmate.

He grabbed a spare bit of fabric from the pile, surprised to find it luckily dry. He figured it must have landed on the sand. He wrapped it around the shallow cut, grateful it hadn't touched by the salt water.

He set the pocket knife down on one of the stacked suitcases and turned back into the water to search for more.

On and on he worked, trading conversation with his classmates and sorting through spinning thoughts. He unearthed pieces of jewelry embedded in the sand, stray scraps of waterlogged fabric, wrinkled wet rags of paper separated from book spines, make up containers missing their product, wrappers missing candy bars, and every other random trinket that lay on the beach.

By the end of scouring the area for anything useful the blinding glow of sunlight had drifted around the bend of a memorable towering tree, the only signal that time had moved on.

"Hey, guys, I think we can meet up here now!" Chris shouted. Dick looked up to find him standing at the treeline, figure covered by the shade.

Dick sloshed out of the water and onto the beach. His feet were wrinkled with shallow scrapes on the bottom from his time plowing through the ocean. Teenagers dragged themselves forward around him, complaining about their aching backs and various injuries. Dick looked around and realized that everyone had a new forlorn look in their eye, a wariness to the way they walked. He tried to replicate this look, bowing his head and dragging his feat.

"Hurry, guys, we're burning daylight!" Riley urged. She had already settled against the bark of a tree with arms curled protectively around her knees, bunched against her torso, as if to protect it.

They picked up their pace, sand sliding underneath and uprooting their firm footing. Dick gritted his teeth as a leg slid out from where he expected as he placed his weight.

"I literally can't feel my legs." Lizzie groused. Her statement brought on a chorus of agreement as the class settled into a circle, scrunched on one side so everyone was under the protection of the leafy canopy above.

The volume level escalated, the air filling with complaints. Richard noticed Chris exchange an overwhelmed look with Mr. Robinson. The teacher merely grimaced and gave his student a confirming nod, tilting his head in the direction of the group.

His lips moved, forming words that Dick couldn't hear over Lindsey's angered tone. Chris turned to the group, clearing his throat hesitantly. "Guys! I need you to quiet down!"

Dick looked around. Katie and Pattie, at least, were staring up at Chris with undivided attention. Other than that everyone just kept talking.

"Hey! Shut up, already!" Chris ordered loudly. The talking faded away.

"Not how I would have done it, but at least it worked." Mr. Robinson allowed. Chris looked somewhat sheepish.

"Uh, yeah. Anyway, Mr. Robinson, I caught you up on everything that happened when you were asleep, would you like to, you know, do your teacher thing?"

Mr. Robinson had always seemed pretty laid back to Dick, always cracking jokes through class and showing up with hair and clothes in different states of untidiness. Now however, where he would have usually done a strange huffing laugh, he instead allowed his lips to twitch pathetically.

"No Chris, it seems as though you've done a good job with this group so far, and this isn't like a classroom. Here it's not your education on the line, it's your survival. We'll keep going with the system that's worked since we've got here."

Chris looked taken aback and he paused for a moment, jaw hanging lower than usual before starting and nodding.

"Yeah, uh, okay." Dick noticed he seemed more awkward now, with the eyes of his teacher trained on him. "So me and Thomas scratched that list from earlier into, uh," He trailed off, eyes searching a tree to his side where they had ripped away the tough outer layer of bark to reveal the tender light wood underneath. "Oh, right there." He traced the thin indents on the bark.

"So we decided what we needed to do, now we got to get out there and do it."

A few groans split the silence predictably. Dick wondered for a moment how is classmates would fair in a training match with Batman or the team. The idea almost caused him to laugh.

"...so how about we go around and say one of our strengths, and then we can match that person up with whatever task works with their abilities the best." Ava suggested, shrugging.

Chris nodded. "Good idea."

Dick's thoughts immediately ran together. What should he do? He could reveal part of his skills, enough to help and get off with mild suspicion at best. Or, he could lie completely, tell them he was good at math like they already knew.

He knew what Bruce would tell him. Lie low, go with the crowd unless it was absolutely necessary to help, and never divulge his identity. The voice nagged at him persistently, scolding him when his consciousness strayed, considering other options.

"I can start." Avery volunteered after a moment of everyone glancing from person to person, exchanging brief eye contact.

"Uh, yah." Chris agreed. "So just, whatever your good at, whether you think it'll be useful or not."

Avery saw silent for a moment, eyes trained on the ground bellow. "Well, I'm a good runner."

"Stamina or speed?" Richard asked without thinking.

Heads turned towards him.

"Both, I'm pretty balanced out." She shrugged her shoulders.

"What else?" Chris asked. "You've got to have more than one thing, maybe a hobby?"

"I-I'm good at braiding." She fingered her long chestnut colored hair. "My younger sister and I practice on each other when we're bored."

"Okay, that's, uh, cool?" Chris said encouragingly. "Anything else?"

Avery shrugged again. "Not really."

Chris nodded, his blue eyes flicking over to Elijah, who sat besides Avery. "Okay, Elijah, why don't you go next? We can just go around in the circle."

Elijah hesitated. Dick decided he most likely felt put on the spot, with all of them staring expectantly at him. "I'm a competent musician." His voice was firmer as if formed words now, no slurring mixing up his sentences.

"We already knew that." Lindsey rolled her eyes. They did already know, Dick acknowledged. Elijah had magical fingers, fingers that could curl around any instrument and tease out a melody that sent the message he'd been using it since he was born. A faint coloring flushed Elijah's cheeks, only noticeable to Dick from the rigorous training he'd undergone in examining people to the extent where he could normally vocalize their intentions from a glance at their face. Well, that was the idea anyway. Dick had preferred planning later exploits with Roy and Wally or the team to actually fully listen to the lectures.

"I don't really think I have anything else." He said, turning to the next person in the circle, Jason.

He smiled cockily. Dick aimlessly wondered if it was a smirk that lived on his face, regardless of his surroundings. "I'm strong, fast, athletic I guess." The teenager shrugged. "You all already know."

How could they not? Dick asked himself. The amount of bragging he did marching up and down school hallways, slipping from the side of girl to girl and recounting his most recent buzzer beater or last minute touchdown.

"Yeah, how could we have forgotten." Lizzie commented dryly.

Jason's apparently not permanent smirk morphed into a scowl.

Chris stepped in before the animosity elevated higher then it already had. "What about you, Bette?" He turned towards the girl, who was seated reluctantly besides Jason, shifting away from him, inch by inch.

"Me?" Bette thought for a moment. "I'm good with modeling?"

Chris hesitated. "I know I said that anything could be helpful, but can you think of anything else you're good at?"

Bette winced. "Well, I'd say make up, but I'm pretty sure that has about the same level of usefulness." She was quiet for a moment before tilting her head in realization. "I'm okay at tennis, better than okay actually, and I know a little gymnastics."

Dick had watched them. Bette and Barbara, joined in now and then, as they practiced different maneuvers, fancy flips and tricks. He'd already known how to do everything they tried, had known since before he could remember, but he didn't tell them that.

"Okay, that could be helpful." Chris noted. "Ava? You have anything?"

She ran a hand through her hair in thought. After a moment a light blush dusted her cheeks. "Uh, well my grandma always tried to teach me how to crochet and knit and all that. I never really had any talent for anything but sewing, but I could probably pull a few things together with the fabric scraps? Or fix clothes?"

"That's great!" Chris said enthusiastically. "Anything else?"

"No, not really." She answered turning towards the next person in the circle. Everyone else did also.

"Riley? What about you?" Chris asked.

The girl looked unsure, a change from her usual outgoing nature. "I'm-I'm fairly athletic. Enough to get by on."

Lizzie spoke up from her side, placing a hand on her friends shoulder in a possessive sort of way. "She's being modest, Riley has tons of talents. And she makes the best beef stew I've ever tasted. And she's not bad cooking the biscuits that come with it."

Riley swatted her arm away, a rosy pink dotting her cheekbones. Chris nodded. "Well I'm not sure we've got the things to be making beef stew on the island, but if we get the stuff to pull something together you'll be our chef. Can you cook anything else besides beef stew?"

Riley opened her mouth to answer but Lizzie beat her to it. "Of course she can! She's the best cook with nearly everything you could ask for! Well...except for that one time with that bacon...I mean, I don't think she meant to burn part of that cupboard-"

"Lizzie!" Riley admonished, slapping a hand over her friends mouth before she could continue her sentence.

"It's okay, Riley, I've literally preheated a pan, burnt water, and made charcoal in a microwave." Ava said helpfully.

A few of the kids let out huffs of laughter.

"Okay, well we know that Riley's a remarkable cook, what about you Lizzie? Anything worth mentioning besides a uncanny ability for interrupting?" Chris asked.

Lizzie smirked. "Well there is that, but I'm pretty good with swimming, I can hold my breath pretty long too."

"Yeah, and scare anyone in the nearby vicinity into thinking your drowning." Riley growled quietly.

"You have got to get over that." Lizzie replied, shaking her head with exasperation. "It was years ago!"

"But it happened again a few months ago!"

Dick was used to this type of arguing, where Riley and Lizzie seemed too absorbed in their conversation to notice the awkward silence of an audience. Neither ever seemed to care, and the only way to snap them out of it was to startle them into awareness with a well timed comment.

"Hey, gu- I mean, girls. Maybe now isn't the best time to decide what counts as almost dying and what doesn't." Chris interrupted responsibly.

"Yeah, fine." Lizzie agreed, Riley nodding along.

"Okay, so then, Thomas?"

Dick suddenly realized that Thomas was sitting next to him, meaning he would have to go next.

What would he say? He had to decided, now. It was well known he'd grew up in a circus, though most of his classmates didn't seem to understand exactly what this meant. He knew a fair few languages, would that be something Bruce considered to dangerous to divulge? It wasn't from training to be Robin, but it did make him stand out. Besides, knowing a few languages wasn't going to amount to much help on a deserted island.

The conversation went on around them, something about Thomas saying he could juggle very well, and Cole complaining that juggling wouldn't be useful at all.

Dick tuned them out.

He could say he still remembers some acrobatics, but Bruce definitely wouldn't approve of the idea. And besides, common sense told him it was too much information to give away.

He glanced up at the sound of laughter, catching a few joking comments then maybe Thomas was a fashion model with Bette.

He was running out of time.

He could say he was good with animals? It was true, he'd grown up with plenty of rarities, but how would that be helpful? He could try and snake charm a few slithering creatures like he'd seen a woman do at the circus? It was a ridiculous notion.

What if he just told them he was good at math? Not helpful, but true. Maybe he would be in charge of counting supplies. _Such a good use for his talents_ , he thought dryly.

He halfheartedly heard Thomas settle into a semi-serious tone and say that he had some talent with drawing and sculpting, something about his parents forcing him to attend a string of classes.

"What about you, Richard?" Dick's head snapped up to meet Chris's curious gaze.

Grasping at stray thoughts for something to say he landed on an automatic response, he normally had too fight down. "It's Dick. Not Richard, you can just call me Dick."

A few people looked startled before understanding dawned in their eyes.

"Dick? Are you sure you want us to call you...that?" Thomas asked.

"It's what everyone else calls me." Dick answered as his thoughts raced around in his head. He'd bought himself a few moments more, now to put that time to good use.

"Yeah but, wouldn't you prefer, I don't know, Rich, or Richie, or something?"

Dick made a face. "No I've always been Dick, Richard just seems weirdly formal to use on a deserted island."

Mr. Robinson nodded. "Okay then, Dick it is. Now, we all know you've got talent with math."

A few glum nods. "He practically knows everything." Thomas complained. They ignored this as a group.

Mr. Robinson continued. "Anything else?"

This was it, the moment he followed Bruce's rules strictly, or revealed something about himself that might cause suspicion. "I'm great at crossword puzzles. Zoom right through them."

 _I'm a genius_ , He thought to himself smugly.

* * *

 **Audience point of view thing again.**

People all over the world stared at the image of the thirteen year old boy as he announced confidently his talent in completing crossword puzzles.

"Seriously? That's the first thing he thinks of?" One dark skinned man with a crooked nose remarked. "The crossword puzzles?"

Richard Grayson, or as he seemed to prefer, Dick Grayson, didn't seem to think anything of his answer, turning the the other teenager he sat besides, the boy named Cameron.

"What about you Cameron? It's your turn." The boy announced.

"Well, it's got nothing on crossword puzzles, but I'm pretty good with tech, like coding."

"So your like one of those guys in front of the computer in all the TV shows?" Pattie confirmed. The tips of Cameron's ear darkened into a noticeable red.

"Well not yet, maybe one day I'll end up tangled in some national security issue." He said.

The audience noticed that though it sounded like he was joking, it didn't look like the boy minded the idea.

"Well make sure if you get an award you come find me." Chris warned him. "Anyway, Pattie, your turn. What do you have up your sleeve we haven't heard about?"

Pattie bit her lip. "I'm good with crafts, like DIY's. Normally with an instructional video..." She trailed away.

"Okay, anything else?" Chris asked.

"I was a dancer when I was younger, I haven't been competitive for a few years but I can still do most of the moves."

"You were a...dancer?" Thomas asked, looking as though he was trying to hide some skepticism.

"Uh huh." Pattie answered defensively, eyes narrowed.

Thomas backtracked quickly. "Oh, that's...cool. I just never pegged you as someone who liked that sort of thing."

Pattie opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by Chris turning to Kathie.

"Kathie? How about you go." Chris's eyes flicked noticeably towards a certain pair of teenagers, one shifting nervously as the other eyed him suspiciously.

"M-me? Well I'm, um, I'm good at a few things..." She thought for a moment, twisting the cuff of her shirt in one hand. "I can hunt. I, um, used to go out with my grandpa before he got sick. I'm a p-pretty good shot."

A flash of surprise at this knew information flew across the world. Kathie's innocent expression did nothing to enforce the idea that she was capable of stealing animals of their life.

"Well that's a good thing." Chris said, looking somewhat relieved. "So did you actually...kill anything?"

Kathie nodded expression somber. Seeing some of the hesitant expressions of her classmates she hurried to explain herself. "It's not like I loved k-killing them. I just appreciated the idea behind catching our own f-food."

"So if it comes down too us killing Bambi or Thumper you'd be ready to...off them?" Avery asked.

Kathie seemed like she tried to shrug and nod at the same time, resulting in her doing a weird upper body movement. "I could do it."

"Okay, well that might be helpful." Chris decided.

He turned to the next teenager in the circle, who the audience recognized, immediately realizing it was the same snobbish girl who'd broken a nail.

"Lindsey, you're up."

She sighed heavily, throwing her weight backwards against Cole, who sat too her side. "Well I guess I'm pretty good at, like, make up, or fashion."

Chris seemed to be debating whether to ask her something. "That's great Lin, but do you happen to have any other skills?"

Lindsey frowned, lips parted as she thought. "I'm good as horse back riding, Daddy signed me up for classes." She said, referring to her father. A man with an impressive net worth, but hardly comparable too Bruce Wayne and Bette's father. "I'm a totally good actor too, I was like a star in a drama production a few years ago."

Lindsey seemed done with the conversation, turning back to nursing a torn nail and experimentally tracing the scratches going up her arm.

Cole didn't wait for Chris to ask him. Instead adjusting Lindsey's weight more comfortingly before beginning to speak. "I'm an athlete, best one here."

Jason didn't look as though he agreed, but he kept quiet following a warning look from Bette.

Chris didn't seem to expect any different answer. Neither did anyone else.

"Okay, Mr. Robinson? Do you want to join in." The teenager looked hesitant that he had crossed a boundary but the middle aged teacher didn't mind. He merely forced his mouth into a smile and nodded.

"Of course! What kind of teacher would I be if I didn't join in with my students." Teachers across the world nodded along with him. It was best you joined in with those under your care, put them at ease. "I'm your homeroom teacher, of course. Though I also teach English to some of you. Some things I'm good at...include reading, writing, and chess, as well as other board games."

The teacher smiled softly. Chris nodded. "Well that's everyone." He said.

"What? No, you still have to go." Cameron reminded him. "If we all had to struggle to find something we're good at, you have to too."

Chris looked briefly surprised before resigning himself, looking at his feet as they swirled sand around in a complex swirl. "I'm pretty good with fishing. I used to go out with my little brother and see who could get the biggest pile."

"Well looks like we can hope to have a dinner of seafood soon." Avery pointed out happily.

"I love seafood!"

"Ew, I can't stand fish."

"How is he going to catch food without a rod?"

"Who'd go out for fishing when you can just order someone to bring it?"

The babbling broke out, the boredom of sitting around and talking bubbling over.

The audience waited for them to quiet down, however it didn't happen.

The screen went dark.

Captions rolled across the bottom of the screen, along with the chilling voice of the man.

 **"Well, how's that. A much longer clip for you to watch, and it kept your attention."**

He laughed at his own statement.

 **"We'll pick up tomorrow, same time, and continue watching the tale of this class. Make sure you're ready! Goodbye for now!"**

Screens flicked back to television shows, or social media sights, leaving the people staring at the TV, belatedly realizing that they w _anted_ to know more. Regardless of the worry they felt, they couldn't help but wish to watch more of the classes story. The thought scared some, while others merely returned to everyday life.

 **AN: If any of this chapter seems influenced in a sad way, that's probably because I just b** **inged watched the second half of Merlin for the first time, picking it up after a sizable break.**

 **For those who haven't seen the show you'll have no idea what I'm talking about, but I'm sure there's someone who understands the complete denial I'm feeling as I watch the finale. When I cry it's when an animal dies or some other equally horrifying event. I haven't had to fight down tears for a mythical character since the seventh Harry Potter book, but whoa, if Merlin didn't slam me in the gut... I mean, just knowing the ending...**

 **Plus after finishing the show on Netflix, (still in denial) I searched the web for some confirmation that yeah, the writers are total jerks and did leave the show like that. I found a heart breaking article, which rekindled the pain of knowing...ugh, spoils.**

 **Sorry for that rant and everything, it's like I can't even stop. And you people can just skim or skip over this anyway, so we're good. (I mean, I hope we're good. 'she says while nervously glancing around'.**

 **Thanks for reading another chapter! I'll get to work on the next one.**


	4. The Departing

**AN: Here we go, update-chapter-whatever-you-want-to-call-it-4!**

 **First of all I just want to thank all the positive feedback I've been getting, you guys are great! And I say this while at the risk of this author note sounding like a Oscar nomination speech or something...Either way, I'm totally serious. The spike of happiness whenever I see a new review or favorite, or follow thingy, or whatever else there can be, is what really motivates me to keep going with writing this fic.**

 **Also if there is anyone who has an idea that they want incorporated into this fic feel free to bring it to my attention in any way you please, blah, blah, blah, that sounds way too formal.**

 **I've gone on long enough, now for the actual reason you're here, the story. Also, I'm going to start in another character point of view, just to show how Dick/Robin's friends are doing with this idea. And just so you know, in this fic only Wally knows Robin's true identity on the team. Roy knows too, but he isn't on the team. (Oops, guess that was sort of obvious...)**

 ** _*Kind of important?*_ I haven't read any of the comics relating to any of these characters, mostly what I know is based off of online, Young Justice (The show), and (Oh My Golly, I know how terrible this source is, for the facts at least, it's an awesome past time) fan fiction. I've kind of decided that Wally, Dick, and Roy would have gotten along really well, bonding over the fact that they were original sidekicks at a similar time frame. Sort of the same with Kaldur. I guess I just imagine that since he was down in the ocean he wouldn't be as close to the others. **

**Also I picture the three boys kind of being nuisances and causing lots of confusion to their poor mentors. I don't know, if you don't like that whole idea then I'm sorry...I guess this sadly isn't the fanfiction for you...**

 **That's all!**

 _ **Wally/Kid Flash's point of view**_

They each sat, facing the TV. A flat screen with wires hanging out where they shouldn't have been, connected to DVD players and other technical machines. A side effect of Robin's boredom. Whenever he had nothing to do at the cave, sick of hacking into government facilities and spying on Justice League members from hacked monitors, he played around with the top notch technology Batman had installed.

Wally wished more than anything that it was like that right now. Robin hanging out at the cave, doing something normal, like cackling while performing awe inspiring acrobat tricks across the the room, ignoring Conner's annoyance as he crossed in front of the static on the TV. Breathing in the smell of M'gann's burning cookies, and the sound of Artemis and himself bickering...

Instead the cave seemed lifeless. Everything seemed lifeless. Wally had been friends with Robin for years, getting into countless troubling situations and weaseling their way out of them together had become a weekend tradition, but without him by his side Wally couldn't help but feel deflated.

He sighed and noticed the curious look Artemis sent him from her spot on an opposite couch.

Wally ignored her. He couldn't find the will to bicker while thinking about the harrowing nights Robin, or Dick in this case, would be going through with his class at the moment.

His eyes flicked to the clock in the wall. It was nearly time for the third showing.

The tension the ticking clock hand brought on proved to be too much for him to handle. He leaned back, into the couches embrace, eyes idly roaming over the rest of his team.

Aqualad sat slightly tenser than normal. Wally knew, even without knowing it was one of their own in the marooned class, Aqualad would be feeling sympathy for the unlucky group of teenagers, along with frustration at his inability to do something.

Conner was wearing an unreadable expression, a light scowl firm as always. Wally wondered how he would react if he knew it was Robin out on the show that they'd soon be glimpsing. Probably angrily, throwing things around further than when Wally and Robin had brought in Planet of the Apes to watch on movie night. They hadn't had a movie night since.

M'gann kept casting worried looks at the TV. She wasn't a fan of the viewings, and had spent most of them curled up to Conner's side, eyes widened with irrational fear and concern.

Artemis seemed to be taking it pretty hard, though Wally decided that was to be expected, after all, they were kids who went to her school. Wally could remember her complaining about not getting to go minutes before the first video had flickered to life in the middle of Conner's static. He remembered her angrily clenched fists as they watched the plane fall, and the pain that flashed through her gaze at the images of the dead.

Wally didn't know why they each ended up in front of the TV together at the cave at 12:00, Gotham time, each day. Just that they had been together for the first showing, and had continued through the other the next day.

It would seem they had made a new tradition to replace movie night.

The clock kept ticking, it was nearly time. Wally's hand moved up an down, clapping against his thigh in a steady rhythm by itself, speeding up to point all anyone would be able to see was a blur.

"Wait, so is Robin not coming again?" Artemis asked suddenly, her tone seemingly deader than usual. Wally realized with a stroke of alarm she was looking towards him. He searched through his head quickly, looking for an excuse. What had he said last time? Robin was busy with Batman. No reason it wouldn't work again, after all, no one questioned anything that had to do with Batman.

"Uh, Bat training. Said it was supposed to be brutal this time."

They all winced, familiar with the form of a crumpled Robin on the couch, moaning into the cushions as his limbs throbbed from various bruises.

"Still, you'd think that he might have swung by at least once in the last few days." Artemis said, frowning. "We haven't seen him in a while."

As Wally frantically tried to figure out a way to divert her attention without coming across as desperate Aqualad came through, albeit unknowingly.

"Robin is a busy person, what he does in his spare time is his own business." Wally couldn't help but notice that while Aqualad's words were supportive of the birds choices, his brow was furrowed, as if restraining the curiosity of where Robin had been the last few days.

"You think he's alright though, don't you?" M'Gann asked. She had acted paranoid since the first showing, just like most others Wally had seen.

"He's fine." Conner said reassuringly. "It's Robin." His tone made it clear he was under the impression that being Robin meant it was near impossible for him to be harmed in any way, something that Robin was proud of and loved to shove into Wally's face whenever an opportunity presented itself. Roy helped him most of the times, throwing in comments about 'Kid Klutz.' Wally wished the two of them were there to join in on a match of 'pick on Wally' instead of one being televised from a deserted island.

Either way the team seemed oblivious, operating under the illusion that Robin was perfectly fine.

Wally wasn't so sure, of course, he happened to be aware of information they were not.

He looked up fleetingly towards the clock, a slick mechanical device recently installed courtesy of Robin after an angry rampage by Superboy put an end to their old one. This one was silent, making no audible sound, just silently moving. With a sharp jolt, like an electric current, he realized they were about three minutes out. Three minutes until he knew if this was it for Dick's secret identity.

 _Recognized, Speedy, B06._ **(AN: No idea how to do this freaking thing. Sorry for the interruption, I'll just go back to typing like a good author now.)**

Wally's reaction was immediate, jumping up from his seat and racing over to the door, where Roy was materializing.

The standard, "It's Red Arrow!" Carried throughout the cave. It wouldn't make any difference, Wally laughed along with his partner of crime as Robin happily changed Red Arrow back to Speedy every time it was fixed. Batman was the only one who switched it back, so it would stick for a long time. The bat had mostly given up after countless Robin invasions, dismissing it as a minor unimportant issue. Wally and Rob absolutely loved Roy's annoyance.

Wally barreled into the momentarily startled archer with a cry of "Roy!"

"Hey Kid Idiot." Roy steadied Wally on his feet, pushing him back a few feet with a usual arrogant scowl that Wally and Dick always knew was hiding his amusement at their childish antics. "All I've got is that crap TV, D-" He clamped his mouth shut, sending a look at the approaching team, almost in earshot. "Robin pulled apart. I'm here to keep up with the..."

He trailed of at that point, eyes zeroing in the group of sidekicks, or as Robin insisted forcefully, partners. Artemis was looking suspiciously at the older archer, hand trailing into a loose fist, ready to be tightened and forced into a weapon, as it usually was in the presence of her almost brother-cousin-enemy-acquaintance-and-a-whole-ton-of-other-stuff-figure. Thinking it over a second time Wally realized he had no idea what the two were to each other.

Kaldur looked surprised, but welcoming, similarly to M'Gann, who was always friendly. Superboy was staring silently, a resting contemplative frown.

Overall Wally thought that Roy's unannounced arrival was taken rather well. Wally reached out and grabbed a hold of Roy's arm and walked back towards the couch, ignoring Roy automatically pulling his limb from his grasp.

The team followed Wally back to the couch, still sending the clock furtive glances.

Wally could hear Artemis interrogating Roy, asking why he was here, what did it matter if he saw the show, of course it was her business, they were her friends.

Tempers were starting to rise, as they usually did when the two were locked in a reluctant bout of bickering. "So, Roy." Wally interrupted forcefully. Artemis scowled and turned her head away, arms crossed, but she dropped the argument.

"Yeah?" He grunted, in his own way of a intricate answer.

Now that he actually had his attention Wally realized he had absolutely nothing to talk about that wasn't completely overshadowed by the difficulties at hand. What was he supposed to say?

'You know how Dick, that kid who has kind have been your little brother for a few years? Since he's currently fighting for his life on a deserted island and possibly about to have his secret identity revealed, do you want to head out and catch a movie next Friday?'

He was a jerk for even thinking the sentence in his head. Roy was starting to look annoyed as he waited for an answer, so Wally scavenged the first reasonable idea that crossed his thoughts.

"Where did you watch the first video?" Roy shot him an annoyed look, probably thinking, 'why are you even asking that?'

"On the streets. I headed over to Ollie's for the second video, Dinah asked." His tone made it clear that Dinah asking is what really pushed him to go. Wally knew what he meant, so did the rest of the group. When Dinah asked you to do something, you did it. End of discussion. That was probably why no one else (Artemis) made any snarky comment.

Wally plopped into a couch cushion. Roy sat next to him, his other side against the couches arm, the rest of the team taking their previous seats.

"It's nearly time now." Aqualad noticed hesitantly. Wally exchanged a loaded glance with Roy, both obviously having similar worried thoughts.

"I hope everyone will be alright, today." M'Gann said, nibbling thoughtfully on her lip, eyes staring into the wall.

"They'll be fine." Superboy told her. Wally decided that he was just attempting to be comforting in his own way.

* * *

 **"Hello, once again, my curious friends!"** Wally nearly jumped out of his seat at the overwhelming hatred that settled so suddenly into the pit of his stomach. M'Gann gasped and started. Superboy and Aqualad looked unfazed at the words, they had probably been watching the clock put of the corner of their eyes. Artemis and Roy were both frowning heavily at the TV, which only showed the taunting captions as they faded away, replaced by the new words the man was speaking in his garbling tone.

 **"Now, I'm sure you're all wondering what has happened since the last time we've spoke."**

Roy's hands tightened into fists, veins popping under his skin.

 **"And I'd love to let you know! Only one thing, no matter how fun this whole thing has been (I think we can agree on that at the very least)"**

Wally bit back a growl.

 **"I just can't help but think that with all the delicious interactions I've been seeing with our new favorite class, you just need to be watching more!"**

The team and Roy froze, thoughts racing traitorously.

 **So, to fix this dilemma, I've decided that I'm going to change our already decided viewing time."**

"So, what? Is he changing when he's streaming this sick thing?" Artemis summarized, face screwed up with anger.

"I suppose so. It is true that with whatever little time we've been able to see, we are far behind what must be the present for the students." Kaldur reasoned.

 **"Tomorrow I'm going to be popping back in at 11:00, and let's make that Gotham time, in honor of our stranded little friends! Then, since I know how much you're going to miss me, I'll be back at, oh let's say, four o'clock! That sound alright to all of you?"**

Ignoring the silence, that Wally assumed had to be happening in various locations across the globe, the man started to laugh. You couldn't make out quite what it was at first, with all the static in the tone but after a moment of repetitive wheezing Wally was enraged to realizes that once again he was finding mirth in an anything but hilarious situation.

 **"Well, it doesn't really matter what you all say, I suppose we'll just going to be going with that! Okay then, here we go!"**

The scene changed, back into a montage of swirling scenery, paired with scattered phrases like the previous viewing. It gave Wally an immediate headache.

* * *

 **Um...Don't know what to call this, I guess the vague audience point of view thingy**

 _Shots of children sitting on the airplane._

 _Snippets of conversation, words almost to soft to hear in the babble of them._

 _"Nice try Jason." Bette chastising her classmate._

 _The face of Dick Grayson, features screwed into worry as the plane nosedived dangerously._

 _Teenagers laying in pools of theirs and classmates blood._

 _Agony filled wails._

 _"Please! Get up!"_

 _Skilled hands resembling Dick Grayson's tying clean bandages over seeping wounds._

 _"Oh, God."_

 _Lizzy tentatively resting her crooked ankle against the shifting sand._

 _Bette trying to keep herself awake._

 _"-Bette-Baby, we need some help."_

 _Jason's overwhelmed expression as he stared at the destruction._

 _"I really don't think I can-"_

 _Elijah being cared for by a hesitant Thomas._

 _Mr. Robinson unconscious as Chris and Robin looked down at him._

 _The group standing in a circle._

 _Chris turning towards Dick._

 _"What are we supposed to do next?_

 _Cole speaking up, muscles rippling as he moved to confront Dick Grayson._

 _"He's still a circus freak."_

 _Kathie tapping Lindsey on the shoulder._

 _"I, uh, I really don't think now is the time for this."_

 _Elijah, movements clumsy._

 _"So, wha-at now, Group leader?"_

 _"I think Chris-"_

 _An onslaught of kids raising hands, ideas being called._

 _"Alright, well this is what we have so far."_

 _Chris reading over a list of abbreviation's._

 _Richard nodding, looking out towards a group of kids sloshing through the waves._

 _"Let's go."_

 _Hands digging through churning waves and clasping around drenched prizes._

 _"Add that to the pile."_

 _Bette ordering as her hands clasped around a waterlogged scrap of severed green fabric._

 _The kids plopping into a circle._

 _Chris addressing the group._

 _"Okay, that could be helpful."_

 _"I'm great at crossword puzzles."_

 _The group staring at Dick Grayson oddly._

 _Babbling overcoming the screen, conversations running together, until finally in a flash the screen changed._

* * *

"Guys! Seriously, we're stranded on an island and you still can't settle down and listen?" Chastised properly by Mr. Robinson the students settled down.

"Okay, thanks Mr.R." Chris acknowledged. "We're really running out of daylight here, and we don't know how long the sun stays up on this island. I really want to get as much done as possible while we can still see."

Nods of agreement filled the group of children.

"So, what, who's on which job?" Riley asked.

Chris faltered, gaze drifting to the list of abbreviations he had etched into the soft inner layer of bark on a nearby tree.

The ones the group had deemed important,

 **SS** (Supplies)

 **MC** (Medical Care)

 **SR** (Shelter)

 **FE** (Fire)

 **FD** (Food)

 **WR** (Water)

Chris sighed. "Well, for medical care, none of us seem to be doctors." He noted feebly. "But, Dick, you seem to have a handle on the basic stuff. And you too, Mr. Robinson."

The teacher smiled grimly. "I guess those first aid classes come in handy after all." He shook his head, as if he never would have assumed he would actually need any of the required training that came with becoming a teacher at Gotham Academy.

Oblivious to the audiences scrutiny, the teenagers had no way to realize that eyes were roaming over the oozing scratches that lined their bodies, the majorly treated cuts bandaged up the best that was possible with torn strips of uniform.

"Um, if it's any help I found a first aid kit in the rocks over there, it was sort of crushed but most of the stuff was in there, um, I think..." Kathie spoke up hesitantly, gaze trained forcefully on the sand bellow.

"That's great!" Ava exclaimed, letting out a breath of air. "This wrap is already starting to wear away..." A hand pressed against her side, where something sharp had clipped it and shredded the skin and some meat underneath.

Avery's free hand ghosted the fabric covering her arm as well. Dick had already wrapped up two broken fingers and covered an array of dangerous mottled bruises and punctures.

Closer examination showed many of the students tenderly teasing their injuries without thinking.

"Okay, um, how about you go fetch it Riley, the first aid kit I mean." Chris decided.

"Actually, I picked up a bag with a red cross on the middle floating through the ocean." Jason mentioned.

The mood seemed to settle, the knowledge that they had the tools and means to heal themselves calming the fried nerves that had remained with the students.

"Great, I'll go grab them." Riley pushed herself up from where she sat, minding the binding of fabric over her arm as it shielded a slice from the elements. The class watched as she jogged down the beach, staggering over one patch of loose sand before regaining her footing and continuing her path towards the mound of man-made material stacked in the center of the beach.

"We can patch up a few other cuts while we decided who's going where to do what." Chris decided.

Thomas nodded. "Yeah, I mean, I'm not some nurse or nothing, but I'm pretty sure some of this stuff," he gestured vaguely at his chest where splinters of wood and rocks had inserted themselves into his skin and rolled out, leaving holes that slowly dripped blood, "can get infections or whatever."

"They can." Elijah agreed, "I watched some nature show when I was waiting at the dentists one time."

The approaching figure of Riley, arms clasped around two first aid kits, one hard plastic with a shattered plastic lid, being precariously carried, and the other, a zipped up bag with it's thick strap wrapped around her forearm. She back into her sandy spot with a huff, dropping the tools into the circle and sitting back gratefully, criss-cross apple sauce.

"I'm back." She announced unnecessarily.

"Duh." Lindsey said. The two girls locked gazes, glaring into each others fierce determined expressions.

"Let's settle down girls." Mr. Robinson cut in.

"Sorry, Mr. R." Riley said immediately.

Lindsey tutted and looked away, arms crossed over her chest.

Teenagers all over shook their head in mutual agreement, it seemed that whatever school system you were in, public or private, there would always be a Lindsey.

"Alright then," Chris started, glancing warily at the sun as it trecked across the skyline, "Dick, Mr. Robinson? Either of you want to show us how to apply bandages? Then we can help patch up our neighbors as we go. Take care of Medical Care while multi-tasking."

"Good idea, Buddy!" Thomas grinned, though his lips didn't seem to be able to pull as far back into a grin as the audience had seen while he laughed on the plane.

"This is stupid." Cole groaned, leaning back into the sand.

They ignored his complaint in what seemed to be mutual agreement.

"This is all stupid." Lindsey agreed. Almost mutual agreement.

"Okay, moving on." Pattie said. "I'd really like to get these patched up." She pointed to her back, where her shirt had shredded off some at the bottom, the trailing remains stained red with what had drained out of a deep colony of scratch's, like an ugly road rash that stretched from level with her shoulders to the curve of her waist.

The audience winced at the glare from puss shining over angry red flesh.

"Yeah, yeah that would probably be a good thing." Dick agreed.

And so an enlightening began. The audience waited though explanations of how the different remains of the first aid kits worked.

Mr. Robinson and Dick went around, showing how to deal with minor injuries and letting the other classmates help each other with wounds before settling back into their spots.

"Okay." Chris said to gather attention, Avery's nimble fingers easily setting a bandage in place around his shoulder from his side. "So let's just decide on who would be good to start out on the shelter."

The group thought it over.

"Well," Elijah frowned. "What kind of shelter are we talking about? A wooden shack? Only a ceiling? A lean-to?"

No one answered for a moment.

Lizzie sat forward. "Well, I give up. No idea."

Others nodded in agreement. While this was happening the camera seemed to focus on the easily recognizable younger face of Dick Grayson, expression tightened and eyes thoughtful as he gazed into open space.

"I think I have an idea." Curious looks turned to the black haired kid. He had proven himself well adjusted with first-aid, no matter how much younger the boy was, he had always been sharp, and now was the time when they needed his skills. "You see those trees?"

Everyone looked up to the windy ropes of wood that made up the start of the forest, leaves rustling in the wind.

"Yeah? What about it, just some wood." Cole muttered.

Dick sighed. "Well, look at the leaves specifically."

Pupils changed sizes as eyes focused on specific shaking green plants. Dick tried again. "They're all moving the same way, they've been moving the same way all day."

He opened his mouth to continue, but Cole spoke up again, interrupting him. "So? Who cares what way the _wind_ is blowing."

Dick's shoulders slumped with exasperation. "It _matters_ because for right now the wind hasn't changed all day. There are lots of islands that are placed right in the air currents, meaning most of their wind comes from the same direction, including the storms."

He waited for the dots to connect.

Cameron nodded slowly. "So, what you're saying is that we have a pretty good idea of which way storms will be coming in if they come at all."

Dick nodded. "Exactly. You guys might have noticed, but we're kind of running out of time here." He looked pointedly at the sun as it dipped further across the sky.

"Alright." Chris said shakily, also glancing at the star is it made its warning journey. "It's great we have a better idea of where the danger may come from, but what does that have to do with our shelter?"

Dick studied the surrounding area. "Well it wouldn't be the best solution, but for now we could rig up some kind of lean-to shelter, focusing on protecting us from the direction where the wind is strongest. Then, when we aren't in as much of a time crunch, we can fix it up."

The group nodded. "Seams fine with me." Thomas decided, shrugging, before wincing as the movement pulled at his battered chest.

"Let's take a vote." Chris decided, glancing at Mr. Robinson in case he had anything to add. "Between whether or not we agree on Dick's idea. If we don't think it'll work we can just keep brainstorming." He shrugged.

"Sounds good to me." Pattie said happily.

"Alright then." Chris decided. "All in favor of continuing to think of different ideas, raise your hand."

Cole's arm immediately flew into the air, followed by Lindsey's. They looked around and scowled at the sight of everyone else's hands remaining at their sides.

"Okay." A wry smile flitted across Chris's mouth as he spoke again. "Anyone who votes to use Dick's idea, hands up."

In a rushed flurry limbs were stretched into the air, some wincing at the strain the action put on their aches and injuries.

"Yeah." Dick cheered dryly. Bette smirked at him and rolled her eyes at his awkward enthusiasm.

"Can I work on the shelter?" Elijah asked. "Like I said, I've watched a few shows, I kind of want to see if I can do it."

Chris shrugged. "Yeah, sounds like it'll work." No one made any move to dispute his statement, so Elijah settled back, content with the knowledge that he would have a job to do.

"I can help him." Avery said. "Maybe I can, like, weave together a few of those long blades of grass and make better protection or something."

"Yeah, yeah, that would be great." Chris nodded. "Anyone else? Maybe we should add one more person to helping the shelter. Then let them go off and find a spot nearby, while the rest of us figure out what we're going to do."

A moment passed with no one volunteering. "I mean, jeez if no one else is going to help out I guess I can." Thomas said, shrugging.

"Good." Avery said. "That's all we need, a bout of wisecracking every time we take a step."

Thomas grinned at her. "I'll be happy to oblige."

"Idiot." Avery muttered.

Chris sighed. "Well then, if that's taken care of, how about you three scout out the nearby woods, but don't go too far. Elijah, you have any idea what you're looking for?"

Elijah nodded. "Yeah, but do you think we could raid the supply stash for some rope or something? Just to get the base started. And any plastic bags or waterproof material?"

Chris looked confused. "Um, I guess so. Whatever keeps us comfortable at night." He smiled, as though amused at the idea of being comfortable on an island.

"Then let's get going." Avery stood up, brushing away sand and stretching out one arm, cradling the other against her chest, brutally designed splints worked around two fingers and bandages surrounding her limb, up her forearm and past her elbow.

Elijah and Thomas scrambled to their feet and followed her over the sand towards the looming stack of material.

"So now what? Fire?" Bette asked.

"I guess so." Chris answered. "Now, would anyone here happen to have any idea how to make fire?"

They all looked around, the majority of the gazes landing on Riley.

She noticed. "What? Why are you all looking at me for?"

Immediately they diverted their gazes meaningfully. Mr. Robinson spoke up. "Well, from what we hear you do have quite a bit of talent in the kitchen. And cooking requires heat..."

Riley flung her hands in the air, wincing as her severed skin was stretched painfully. "Yeah, and most of the time I use an _oven_. I don't cook over a-a open _flame_."

They waited for a moment, everyone looking from side to side to figure out who would volunteer for the daunting task of creating a fire from scratch. "Well, since that didn't pan out." Jason sent a meaningful look in Riley's direction. "Anyone else got any ideas?"

Riley scowled at him.

"Well, we could just send a few of us to try and rub a stick against some wood, generate heat by friction." Cameron suggested. "Probably someone who has a little more strength, or stamina. It could take some work."

Eyes drifted to land on Cole or Jason respectively, and as one they said, "I'll do it."

They glared at each other. "I'll go with them." Lindsey volunteered eagerly, lips curling into a delicately designed smile.

"Okay." Chris said, already grimacing at the choice in trio. "Three people is three people."

"This'll be fun." Lindsey agreed, eyes flicking from each boy. Cole and Jason stood, Cole offering a hand to Lindsey, which she accepted.

"If we find a fire starter in the pile we'll tell you." Mr. Robinson told them.

"Yeah." Jason agreed. The three of them wandered off towards the edge of the treeline, before disappearing into the foliage.

"And don't go too far!" Mr. Robinson shouted after them.

"What's your bet they'll listen?" Lizzie hissed to Riley.

Riley scoffed. "They've got the brainpower for maybe one person between the three of them."

Chris coughed to get attention. Everyone turned to face him. "Next up, who want's to take stock of supplies?"

"Um...I, uh, I can do it?" Kathie stuttered.

Everyone turned to the girl, surprised at her speaking out.

"That-that's great!" Chris encouraged, nodding his head vigorously. "Definitely, now, who wants to do that with her? I think we only really need two people for that."

Pattie raised a hesitant hand. "I've got it."

"Alright then." Chris said. "I guess you two can run down and get started.'

The girls exchanged a look before departing, trading simple muffled conversation.

"Well, we really need water." Chris said. "And even though we found a few packs of Gatorade down there," he gestured towards the pile of supplies Pattie and Kathie were making for. "It won't keep us for long. So what are we supposed to do?" His brow furrowed in thought.

Surprisingly the camera or viewpoint seemed to shift, away from the immediate concern, focusing on Dick Grayson instead. His expression looked conflicted, emotions warring over his face, in a struggle to control the way his mouth tilted and eyebrows furrowed. "We could tackle three birds with one stone."

They looked to him, in a remarkably similar way to how they had just minutes before. "I'm pretty sure it's two birds with one stone." Bette pointed out.

"Not this time." Dick retorted. "We need water, and pretty soon we'll need food, we already determined that. So when we go out and search for food and water we can explore a bit."

"I thought we didn't need to explore yet?" Ava asked.

"Well it's not a priority." Dick conceded. "But there's no time to waste when you're trying to survive. And since we're going out to try and find water anyway, along with food if we can find it, we might as well figure out any major landmarks while we go."

"We can figure out if there's any natural predators while we're out there." Cameron added, catching on to the idea. "I think it makes sense."

"Me too." Lizzie agreed. "So can we put it to a vote." She asked, turning to Chris, who nodded.

"Yeah, it's worked so far. Alright, all in favor of, I don't know, search parties or whatever, raise your hand."

They all lifted a limb tentatively into the air, fighting against the strain and the weariness.

"Well we have eight people left." Mr. Robinson tallied quickly. "We could split into two groups, I don't really think it's best to send out any groups smaller than four until we know what's going on in those trees."

They all nodded, obedient to the adult authority in his voice, strengthened from years of teaching.

"How are we going to split?" Chris asked.

"Well we could have team captains." Riley suggested. "If there's any fast decisions needed to be made they can be the ultimate tiebreaker or something."

"Who cares? I say we're burnin' daylight. I want to get out and get something to _eat._ I'm _hungry_." Lizzie complained, one hand ruefully rubbing her growling stomach.

"Yeah, I'm hungry too." Riley moaned.

"Okay girls, we're all hungry." Mr. Robinson soothed tiredly.

"Tell me about it." Lizzie grumbled.

"Either way," Mr. Robinson continued, elevating his tone of the uncomfortable muttering. "I do believe that we should split up soon, time _is_ becoming an issue."

Another flurry of glances to the traveling sunlight.

"Well Mr. Robinson is in one group." Chris mentioned. "He'll be our sort of leader I guess. I think Dick should be in the other."

Dick looked up, surprised. "Huh? Me? Why?"

Ava shrugged and answered for him. "Well, you might still be a little kid, but you seem to know a bit about this whole survival thing."

Dick scowled at the comment, and it looked like a few of the teens were trying to stifle giggles. "I'm _thirteen_. I'm _not_ a kid."

"Of course you're not." Bette appeased quickly, though she was still smiling. "But Ava is right. You do know a lot about this, more than what would be considered normal."

If you were to study Dick Grayson right at that moment, not just a quick glance, but a thorough once over you would be able to make out the tightening of his muscles, the way his back straightened at the implication that he might be anything but totally natural.

Instead only a cheery white grin was visible. "Yeah, well when have I ever been anything less then amazing."

"Dork." Bette muttered.

"So, nice dodging the question, Dick, but will you be the other groups mascot?"

Dick shrugged. "I guess, don't know how well it'll go."

"Alright, Chris, why don't you go with Dick's group, along with Bette and Ava. Riley, Lizzie and Cameron, you guys can come with me." Mr. Robinson ordered, eyes flicking to the sun.

"Wait, what are we looking for?" Ava asked. "I mean, water, food, important stuff, I know all that. But what are we supposed to do if we find anything?"

This gave everyone a pause.

"Well for starters, don't just drink any water." Dick warned. "We have to make sure it's clean, it'd be best to boil it if they can get that fire going. If either group finds any water come back and report where it is. Then we can decide what to do. Or, actually..." He directed his eyes to the supplies pile where Pattie and Kathie were sorting through objects, piling various things to the side."We can go down and grab bags or containers if Pattie and Kathie have found any. Have everyone carry one, grab whatever might be helpful out there."

"Sounds like a good plan to me." Bette decided, stumbling to her feat, and trailing a hand down her arm automatically where a pristine bandage hid away a missing divot of flesh. "Let's get going then!"

Everyone else scrambled up to meet her enthusiasm. "I can't keep sitting still." She growled, stalking down to Pattie and Kathie.

As a group they trecked across the sand. Pattie and Kathie looked confused as they approached.

"What's up?" Pattie asked.

"We're going out in the forest." Chris explained. "Try and find water, food, whatever else we can."

"Okay...is that all?" Pattie looked around at them, all standing in a semi-circle around the supplies.

"We needed some bottles, or containers or anything like that." Riley said.

"W-we've got s-some over here." Kathie said, gesturing to a small collection, plastic bottles with only a dribble of liquid remaining at the bottom, baggies with crumbs from goldfish or crackers stuck in the ridges that closed the plastic together, empty canteens, dented from bashing into rocks or ground when it landed from the crash. "And there." She pointed to a separate pile, empty suitcases, toiletry bags, purses, and travel packs.

"Perfect." Dick breathed in relief. "So we can all just grab either a bag or a larger waterproof something. If you have a bag you can stuff a few water bottles in it for water to bring back."

"You heard him, everyone grab something." Chris ordered after a moment of standing still.

They rummaged through, picking up whatever felt the most comfortable for a hike. Riley caught Pattie and Kathie up on what was happening, with Lizzie butting in to add comments through the explanation.

After a moment everyone was decked out, bags slung over shoulders with a scant collection of supplies inside, weighing it down. A few people had unearthed pocket knives or tools with three inch blades in the emergency pack. They'd snagged them, making sure Mr. Robinson got one. Most of the kids made a big announcement about it, holding it up so it glinted in the light.

The surprise came when Dick Grayson combed through all first aid kits or any other safety pack, eventually tugging out a knife of his own. The audience watched as his eyes flicked side to side, before he clipped the knife to the waistband of his tattered dress pants and tugged his shirt down to disguise the bulking shape.

Still, the world dismissed it as paranoia. He was just a scared boy plane wrecked with about a dozen other survivors. It was only natural he would seek out protection in the way of a defensive weapon.

"Okay, I think we're ready." Mr. Robinson announced. "We'll take this side." He nodded inward, left. "You guys can have that area, straight in, straight back. Use those cliffs as a landmark."

He sternly looked over the group, out of character. "You lot watch yourselves, I'm still technically your teacher, and if anything happens it's my responsibility."

They all nodded.

"We can meet back when the sun crosses the treeline, agreed?"

They all nodded again in unison, hiking up their packs and turning to face the daunting line of vegetation.

"Alright, let's get a move on." Riley said, cracking her knuckles and starting forward.

 **AN: Okay, not the end of the episode thingy, but all I have the energy to write for now. I'll get out the rest soon hopefully, now that it isn't just a bunch of boring conversation we should be able to get something going. Sorry for the longer wait, but I got stuck at about 5,000ish words, and didn't want to end it there. Alright, I'm done for now, time to go live out in the world for a bit.**

 **Toodles! (And sorry for the babbling author note at the top and down here, I get started and I can't freaking stop typing...just...like...this...)**


	5. The Severed Head

**AN: Alright! Thanks for all the support so far, it really means a lot to see your work getting noticed. In the last chapter I mentioned making the show available multiple times to the world during the day. I realized the the world was getting behind the islanders by a lot, and they would continue to do so, so hopefully I can catch them up somewhat, for reasons that are relevant in the future. This next chapter isn't the later showing, just a continuation of the last one.**

 **And one more note, I've realized these author notes are getting longer and longer with each chapter (eep!) so I'll try to cut down on that.**

 **WARNING: So I didn't mean it when I started typing this up, but there is some IDK, maybe gruesome description to come? I don't know what the normal tolerance for this kind of thing is, so if you're extremely weak stomached I caution you to turn back. Maybe I'm just exaggerating, I have no idea. But I warned you so that's, that.**

 **Kay, all done. Let's start.**

Chris stumbled over a decaying chunk of wood, one flailing arm finding purchase against a tree, which he used to righten himself.

"Careful." Bette warned, stepping over the very same obstacle and patting him on the back as she passed, followed by Ava.

"Yeah, I got that." His grumbled, shaking out his ankle before continuing after them.

"Something wrong?" Dick called out. He was perched at the top of the ridge ahead of them, leaning against a rocky wall with ridges coated in moss. Chris couldn't help but feel how unfair it was, the way he hopped as agile as a bird from stone to stone, toes scraping soundlessly over the bed of debris, automatically adjusting his course to lead him safely over the middle of their island half.

It was strange. He seemed so different from the math genius that Chris thought of when someone mentioned Bruce's ward. Someone who was at home in a press conference, math convention, or business meeting. Not a boy who could navigate his way through surviving on an island. Not a boy who could take care of his classmates injuries and keep a calm facade at the sight of dead classmates.

"Pick up the pace Chris!" Ava called, trotting along after Bette and Dick, with a glance backwards in his direction. Chris shook his head. Ava was right, he needed to keep up. It wouldn't do to get separated or too far apart in a place like this. There would be time to dwell on his thoughts later, when he wasn't trekking through a forest that could hold who knows what.

"I'm coming." He acknowledged, speeding his pace along to fall in with his group of explorers. With each step he took his body throbbed in protest, the pounding of his feet against the ground sending pin needles of pain spinning up his calves, before diminishing to a painful prickling sensation. Chris tried to ignore the pain, after all, considering the corpses splayed out on the beach he had come of lucky.

The thought pulled him up short.

That...that could have been him. His unseeing eyes. His blood encrusted hair. His twisted spindly limbs discarded like a marionette puppet.

Shivers raced down his back in a wave of traveling goose flesh. Suddenly the aches didn't seem as bad, like a distant memory of his five year old self's worries.

Realization weighed him down, like weights hammered into his bones, pulling him towards the ground, making his muscles jelly. The black shoe, identical to his, torn and laying next to the leg of Jasper, foot turned to a mound of minced meat and shredded skin preciously hung over identifiable crushed bones. Sanders smashed skull, face caving inward. Anna's missing insides with blood leaching in streaming rivulets.

The images swarmed him.

Chris fought the urge to double over and empty its stomach of its contents right then, well aware that if any of his three companions turned around it would look as though he would keel over any second. The lump in the back of his throat grew. Just days ago Cole had argued with Jasper about a chemistry paper, both heatedly leaning closer together as their tempers rose. Kathie had helped Lina up after she tumbled down the last step at the airport. Now Lina was lying face down in a puddle of saturated blood. Chris himself sat next to Marian on the plane. They hadn't even found her yet, just her shoe, recognizable from the name stitched into the inside. For all they knew she was laying in the jungle dead at the moment, vaporized or planted on some patch of ground where she would slowly decompose...

What was he _doing_? He wasn't a depressed or naturally morbid person, he wouldn't even go see most horror movies. Why were his thought betraying him? Twisting down such dark paths and plaguing him with guilt?

A shake of his head wasn't enough to rid him of the misery, but it did trick his mind. Chris would always repeat the gesture when he was done thinking of something, so maybe now his brain would get the idea. _I'm all done_. He told it. _Sad and nauseating imagery later please._

To follow up the action he focused on each detail they passed, scanning the nicks in bark and tears in leaves. Memorizing the scuff marks left in the trail of his classmates. If he ignored everything it almost felt like they were going on an actual field, hiking in small groups.

Almost.

"Oh my god!"

Chris's head shot up, focusing in on Ava as she stared in horror.

"What's wrong!" He didn't need an answer. As soon as the words left his mouth his eyes zeroed in on the object of Ava's interest. "That-that's a-"

His tongue felt thick in his mouth.

"A head." Dick deadpanned. One look at the younger boy's face was enough to send Chris back a step. Each line of his scowl was tight and shadowed with a promise to expect the worst. Combined with the hard set of his eyes and the ridged posture of his shoulders Chris nearly didn't recognized Bruce Wayne's ward.

"What the _hell_." Bette said, turning away from the sight. Chris's eyes were trained purposefully away from the gruesome display. Out of the corner of his eye he made out Ava's stricken expression, as she stared in a morbidly inquiring way, drinking in the sight.

The memory from seconds ago flashed in front of his eyes, reminding him that only feet away the severed head of a _human_ was brutally stuck on the top of a branch, bloody pits where frozen eyes had last gazed, skin shredded away from the skull by scavengers as bugs scurried across the find.

Where was the _body_? Why was it _here_? _Who_ was it?

Questions raced across his head, replacing each other second after second as his instincts screamed for him to turn and run, swim back through the open ocean and make way for Gotham harbor, never mind the pollution, just get _home_.

A curse turned his attention back to Dick as the boy stepped closer to the head.

"Dick! What are you doing?!" Bette chastised, expression open with worry and fear.

"Shh!" Dick warned. "Just be quiet, I've got to be sure."

"Sure of what?"

Dick ignored them.

He went right up to it, ignoring the stains of blood that dried as they dripped down the branch. Just a quick glance told Chris that the top of the branch had been forced all the way through, coming straight out the back end of the skull in an impossible show of strength before Dicks shoulders obscured the head from view.

"You've got to go!" Dick ordered, turning back with a wider gaze.

"Wh-what? What do you mean _you_ -" Ava complained, finally snapped from her trance.

"I mean it! They appointed me mascot or whatever and I'm telling you to _go_. Get away! And be quiet. Wait for me right past that last ridge."

"Like _hell_ -" Bette began, but Chris wrapped a hand around her arm. She faltered and met his gaze. "Chris?"

"You heard him, we said he'd be field leader, well he's leading. Come on."

He turned on his heel and stomped away, avoiding any sticks that would snap threateningly under his weight.

Dick hadn't done anything to suggest he wasn't trustworthy...ever. He was Gotham's golden boy, his biggest competition possibly being as high as Robin the Boy Wonder. Both were some of the biggest kids around Gotham, along with maybe Bette Kane and a few other kids who were enrolled older classes at Gotham Academy.

Since the moment he had woken he had helped, bandaging others until someone cared to notice the blood leaking from his own injuries and forced him to cover them up.

He had figured out solutions to problem after problem, prodding the group down the course of survival.

As far as Chris was concerned, there were worse things they could be doing then trusting Dick.

Ava and Bette reluctantly followed him back through their trail with one last glance back each.

* * *

 **Back to Robin my friends! I freaking love this guy...(Duh)**

Dick was Robin. Robin was Richard. Richard was Dick.

They were _him_ and each of them had gone through traumatic experiences, whether it be watching the struggling forms of his parents plummet to their deaths, hair raising kidnapping attempts, or torture sessions with Gotham's worse. Each of them knew pain, knew how to operate under pressure, knew how to survive.

No matter who he was masquerading as he had the same memories, same inside reactions, and same emotions. He should have been able to handle this.

So why the _heck_ was it so hard for him to do it?!

 _You've done worse_ he reminded himself, cringing at the memories. _Just get it done Grayson!_

Still though, when he had been shoeing Chris, Ava, and Bette back into the woods it had seemed like easy thing to do, disgusting yes, but definitely in the realm of possibility.

Now however, the idea that he needed to reach his _hand_ into a _rotting head_ seemed like a daunting and impossible task.

He imagined Bruce's face, covered in his signature cowl and stern expression as he lectured him through training. Bruce would reach in, no questions asked. He'd do anything morally acceptable to survive (which in his view, was almost anything but killing), and Robin had always thought he would too. But Dick didn't. Richard didn't. They didn't want to touch the head, they wanted to turn around and go back the way they came like the other kids.

 _What's wrong with you? Just quit thinking about yourself in third person and_ do _it!_

He was being ridiculous. This internal debate was putting himself and his classmates in danger. It was stupid and unnecessary and totally irresponsible.

In a quick fluid motion before he had time to change his mind Dick reached out and tugged the head away from the spike.

The skin still clinging to the head was riddled with holes and a colony of maggots was starting in on one ear. The heads jawbone, halfway covered with the remains of the mans gum line, flopped down as if he was staring slack jawed with his empty eye sockets.

"Gross."

Dick dropped the head on the ground quickly, upright so it sat like one of those fake skeleton Halloween decorations.

Something was gnawing at this thoughts, begging for attention, but he ignored it in favor of getting the task done quicker.

Dick discarded the stick, filing away the crudely whittled spear-like point for reference later. It made a dull thunk noise when it hit the ground.

He looked down into the hole left by the vacancy of the weapon. After just glimpsing brain matter, melting clumps of flesh, and bone, he was about to decide he had been mistaken and that it was all for nothing when the glint of metal under sunlight made him freeze. Dick looked harder at the point, right near the ruined nose, and glimpsed something that definitely didn't belong.

Feeling as though it may have been a better reward to have found nothing, Dick extended his hand and pushed it deep into the hole. The wet, wiggling feel, along with squelching noises made him think he'd never be able to unfreeze his expression from a permanent cringe.

As soon as he felt a hard object that wasn't a bone, he wrapped his digits around it and tugged it free, maneuvering it so it didn't get caught on the heads semi-stable structure.

It came out, dripping with gunk and stained by the bodily fluids, but one glance was all Dick needed to feel that much more safe.

Sure he had a knife from the pile, a short blade that would be useful if he needed to deal with low-priority threats, but to have just the one bird-a-rang from his belt was enough to send warmth through his fingers, though that might have been the coat of sludge warming in the humid climate.

Disgusted he waved his hand, flinging the goop away from the bird-a-rang before wiping it off on a leaf the size of a dinner plate. When it was efficiently cleared off he worked on his hands with a fresh leaf from the same bush.

Dick looked down, and quickly realized he had a hiccup in his plan. He didn't have a belt to store the bird-a-rang like usual, so instead, he slid it into the knife's holster, a space made from the gap in two sheets of the material used for backpack straps. It didn't feel right, but it was the best choice he had.

Quickly he stood up, patting his pants down to brush away any dirt or debris from the forest floor. He gave up after a bit, really it was impossible to get rid of each mineral of sand now encrusted into the fabric.

Dick jogged back through the forest, towards the ridge where Chris had last fallen, and where he had told them to meet him. He'd wasted enough time already.

His steps were silent over the forest floor, expertly molded feet turned into silent travelers. He dodged fallen logs, clumps of vegetation, and stones the size of soccer balls.

The sound of talking filled the air, soft and muffled, but distinguishable. _I told them to be quiet_. It didn't matter, they weren't part of a secret division under the control of the Justice League. They weren't Batman, who would have come to Robin's conclusions faster than he could. They were just a scared group of kids.

"Well why did we just leave him there! Something was obviously wrong!"

"I don't know, I just, I just felt like he knew what he was doing."

"That was a _human head_!"

"Both of you! Dick told us to be quiet."

"So? We already came through this way. If anything was going to happen, it would have."

"I don't know..."

Dick felt it was time to come out from behind the wall of vegetation and join his friends in the small clearing they had camped out on.

"I'm back."

"What the heck!" Ava squealed at his sudden materialization. He would have to be careful about that, normally he made sure to act more normal when he was Richard. He almost never did 'that creepy ninja thing!' that Wally was so against. Dick realized he had been blurring the usually so clear line between Robin and Richard and Dicks personalities.

That wouldn't- _couldn't_ -happen again. Not just his, but Bruce's secret identity was on the line.

"Sorry." He grunted. "Now we've got to move."

He urgently made his way past the group, towards the path they had came through.

"Why? What's the hurry?" Bette asked.

"A lot." Dick answered grimly, not faltering in his steps, knowing they were trailing hesitantly behind him.

"Yeah, 'cause that's not general at all." Bette mumbled, stumbling over the uneven ground.

"I'll explain back at the beach." Dick told her.

"Can you at least slow down?" Chris asked. Dick looked back and realized that his quick pace was leaving the group tripping and staggering after him through the brush.

He impatiently shook his head. "No, we really need to get out of these woods." He did, however walk to the left, over a smoother route.

Another glance back told him that his classmates were becoming worried. They exchanged hesitant looks.

"Dick, what is going on?" Ava asked cautiously. "That-that _thing_ back there..." She trailed off, presumably deciding she didn't want to continue her question. He didn't say anything, just kept silently trekking.

* * *

It took longer than Dick had hoped to get back to the treeline. If it had been him alone, or with Batman, or even with the team, he would have zoomed right out. Maybe done some flips through the branches overhead to avoid the rough terrain, stealthily jumping from each skinny tree limb.

Instead he endured a costly amount of time pretending to stumble enough so that he looked _normal_. Because even now, stranded on an island, it was dangerous to jeopardize his secret.

Each cracking branch under his classmates feet, every curse as they fell and scraped elbows or knees, they all sent a patch of goose flesh fleeing down his back as his instincts screamed for him to reach into his utility belt to seize a weapon, anything that could be used to face whatever enemy was out there.

His stress levels were in the clouds.

But they had done it. They were back on the beach, feet sinking into the malleable sand and the remnants of sunlight hanging overhead. His relief was short lived when a quick glance around the beach assured him that most of the class was absent.

 _Not good. Not good at **all**_.

Just _why_ had he let them go off into the woods? He hadn't scouted the area, didn't know what threats were waiting, both man-made or natural. For all he knew, they could have been torn apart by native predators, screams lost in the distance between them.

His anxiety was pushing past the moon.

"Hey! You guys back already?" Pattie called to them. She and Kathie were sitting in the sand, hair windswept and snarled, surrounded by carefully sorted teetering piles of luggage. The group made their way over to the two girls.

Chris nodded, shooting Dick a confused look. "Yeah, we, uh...we found some stuff and we had to get a move on back."

"W-what kind of s-stuff." Kathie asked, twiddling her thumbs.

Chris looked like he wanted to answer, but couldn't get the words out after catching the innocent questioning quality in the two girls eyes.

"We found a head." Dick said.

Kathie and Pattie exchanged looks. "What animal?" Pattie asked.

Dick's expression tightened. "Human."

Pattie looked like she could choke on air, and Kathie stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"Now, girls, this is important." Dick's gaze burrowed into their own, thoughts pinwheeling wildly. "Has anyone else came back yet?"

Pattie nodded, still thunderstruck about recent revelations. "Lindsey, Cole, and Jason came by looking for a fire starter."

"Did you give them one?" Bette asked.

Kathie started to answer, nodding, but Dick brushed the conversation aside.

"They went back into the woods?" Dick asked.

"Yeah, over there." Pattie pointed off towards the treeline and Dick cursed under his breath.

He stalked back and forth for a moment.

"Okay, I got it." He nodded, but his eyes still looked troubled. "You all stay here."

"Wait what?" Ava asked. "As in, you're not?"

"Yeah, what the hell Dick!" Bette scolded. "How about a bit of an explanation before you go running off wherever your planning to this time."

"Bette's got a point." Chris agreed.

Dick huffed. "We don't have time, I'll explain after. For now, everyone stay together right here on the beach. You see anything you don't recognize, stab it."

"What's going on?" Pattie asked, looking back and forth between Dick and the group.

"I don't have time for this!" Dick announced. "I'm leaving! I'll be back in a bit, after I find anyone and send them right back here. If any groups arrive make sure they stay with you."

"Wait Dick!" Bette ordered. "They aren't due back until-"

"You can't go in alone!"

"What is going on?"

"I don't understand..."

"I'll be back in a bit." He ignored their complaints and set off towards the woods, ready to find the others.

* * *

 **Wally's point of view again, just 'cause...Not the end of the whole episode thingy, just him watching it with the team**

 _OhGodno-ohGodno-ohGodno-ohGodno-ohGodno-ohGodno-_

"What's he doing! Going in alone!" Artemis cried, watching as Dick walked towards the forest by himself. "He's such an idiot!"

Wally couldn't help but disagree, but didn't say anything. Dick knew what he was doing, probably hoping to save his and Artemis's classmates. The team didn't know Dick was Robin and fully capable in this situation. Thinking this over, Wally didn't like the contemplative look on Kaldur's face.

He had thought it was it for Dicks secret when they found the head, and Roy did too. Wally could tell by the stoics archer's wavering scowl. M'Gann had screamed, Superboy had adopted a uncharacteristic disgustedly surprised expression, Artemis's eyes nearly doubled in size, Kaldur looked away and trained his eyes on the couch, Roy had glared at the head and growled when he saw Dick's expression, and Wally himself almost gagged at the image.

Through the exclamations Wally could feel dawning horror as he watched Dick send his classmates away, and approach the gruesome object in question.

"What's Dick doing." Artemis had asked, eyeing her school friend reluctantly. "Tell me he's not going to-oh no."

They all swallowed back the urge to throw up as his hand slipped into the missing crevice of brain and bone and gore to extract an object.

"Wh-what is that?" M'Gann asked hesitantly, looking terrified and filled with sympathy for who she thought was just a rich school kid.

Wally and Roy exchanged looks, noting the tapered ends of the metal that Dick had extracted. It would probably hard for most to tell just what Dick had grabbed, but they'd seen them flash to life out of a certain utility belt in more scenarios then they could count. It was easily seen that Dick had just found himself a bird-a-rang, and Wally was both relieved he had protection, and worried about what it might mean for his secret identity.

"It appears to be some sort of knife." Kaldur decided. "A blade of some type."

Wally let out a breath of relief, trying to steady the hand tapping on his thigh at super speed. If anyone would have recognized the tool it would have been their team or Justice League members. Even with Artemis's impressive array of skills, Kaldur's natural intelligence, Superboy's sharp senses, and M'Gann's mental abilities, they hadn't figured out what Dick had grabbed, between when he was handling it or wiping it down with a plant.

"I just don't get it." Artemis admitted. "What was that doing in there? There's something really wrong happening." After a moment she added, "And Dick's not the type to do...s _omething_ like that. To reach _inside_ a human _head._ "

She shook her head in defeat, looking completely baffled. Wally didn't say anything, knowing Dick was exactly the type of person who could do something like that.

"I don't know, he just did it." M'Gann pointed out quietly, cuddling closer to Superboy.

"Hey, it's all good sweetcheeks." Wally told her, his voice sounding flatter than usual, mostly just flirting out of obligation rather than desire. Roy eyed him, and Wally forced a light grin to cross his expression, telling the protective archer he was fine.

"Thank you Wally." The martian answered, forcing her normal sweet smile.

They kept watching in silence following this exchange. The camera, or viewpoint, or whatever it was allowing them to watch Wally's best friend and his class, stayed trained on Dick as he made a trip through the woods. It paused from time to time, like it was fast-forwarding so the audience didn't have to keep watching him silently walk through the landscape.

"He's really quiet." Superboy remarked, brow wrinkled. Wally tensed, before shrugging.

"Well, it's probably because you're used to your whole super hearing thing, and the camera can't pick it up right."

Superboy grunted.

"I don't know, he's not just quiet, he's being totally silent." Artemis said, leaning forward in thought.

Wally was saved from having to find another excuse (knowing Roy wouldn't be much help) by the sudden change of the TV.

The screen flickered, changing terrain with Dick moving from where he had been walking seconds ago.

"I guess this guy was serious about saving time. That must be why he's fast-forwarding through the non-vital parts." Artemis diagnosed. The others nodded in agreement.

Instead of silently ghosting through the forest, acting every bit like the ninja Wally had deemed him, Dick was shown leaning naturally against a tree as he stepped out of the forests shadow, startling his classmates and interrupting their intense conversation (read: argument).

Wally watched as Dick ordered them to follow behind and leave the forest, wincing at his lack of communication skills. Sure, his identity being at stake was serious, but he could at least give the scared group of kids _something._ Dick however, chose the alternate route, letting them drift along cluelessly. Wally felt for the teens.

The speedster could see in his best friends eyes, even through the screen, the way they shone with worry, paired with the almost unnoticeable crinkle of Dick's eyebrow's. He knew Dick had figured something out, something even more worrisome then whatever had already happened. Wally leaned forward, imagining that his mental cheering would travel through the technology and urge Dick to safety.

He doubted it helped much.

And so, when Artemis yelled in surprise about Dick walking towards the forest alone, Wally tried to ignore the part of him that wanted to jump up and yell alongside her.

He was _worried_ about his friend. They didn't know what was going on, if Dick had any inkling that he had to protect his identity from the world. They didn't know how big of a deal the guy who sent the class to the island was, what his powers were. Dick could he heading into a fight with a lot of _I don't know's_.

"I hope he's okay." M'Gann said, yanking Wally back to reality.

"Yeah." Wally cleared his throat. "Yeah, me too."

 **AN: Kay, I meant to go longer, but I really just needed to get this out. I feel like this might be my worst chapter yet, the formatting just seems so off. Thanks if you're still reading, getting feedback of any kind is what makes my day. I especially look forward to the reviews, because it is awesome to know what others think of what you've come up with.**

 **I will say, there is one thing I'm waiting to see if anyone will point out, that I had forgotten to address so far, but will soon be working into the plot. It'll probably be coming up in the next or one after updates, but if someone guesses it before then I'll tell that they got it right in the next author note.**

 **Toodles!**


	6. The Confrontation

**AN: I was going to take a little while longer to get this written and posted, but then I got all the reviews and I got all happy and kind of just wanted to write this up. So let me no what you think...( _Please_ )**

 **Other than that I don't have much to say...(That's a first) so just the normal thank you all for any feedback and support. Guess I'll just start writing the reason you're here for now.**

* * *

 **Dick's point of view...Robin's point of view...Richard's point of view...what the heck they're all the same person anyway...**

It was easier now, without his classmates hovering over him, to slip through the woods like a ghost. It felt natural. It gave him something to hold onto, a way to channel his training into something useful and feel like he was getting somewhere.

Success was what drove him, the need to feel useful, and to make Bruce proud. But now, after a whirlwind of hours, Dick felt the need to get a _win_. To show that something was going _right_.

A chirp echoed overhead, drawing him out of his thoughts. At least it meant there was another food source.

His feet moved on autopilot, leading him through the foliage and toward where Jason, Lindsey, and Cole had disappeared into. It felt like he'd been walking too long. They wouldn't have been too far in, after all, they would need the fire nearby. An easy distance to the shelter.

A sudden muffled sound caused him to freeze, melting into what little shadows were cast under the blazing sun. He imagined his ears perking up to listen, not unlike a dog or cat, or, he thought smirking, a bat.

"I still think I saw a spark!" It was a high, elegant, feminine voice, clearly belonging to Lindsey. Dick started off in that direction, finding it only a few feet diagonal to the route he'd been traveling.

"Shh! I'm concentrating." Jason hissed.

"Well concentrate harder or hand it over!" Cole grumbled. Dick was close now. He could see the easily distinguishable man made uniforms standing out against the green and brown surroundings.

"I think I've almost got it." Jason said, voice ringing with excitement. Dick stepped out from behind a tree and entered the vacant ground where they had settled. They sat in a circle, Lindsey atop one of the boys sweaters _._ Dick didn't know whose, they were both missing. One had probably been sacrificed in the mayhem of getting injuries covered when they had first arrived.

Cole was leaning his weight onto one arm, the limb acting as a lever against his considerable bulk.

And Jason...Dick had to force himself not to sigh as he watched Jason try to light a branch with a magnesium fire starter.

"Guys-"

Lindsey's head suddenly swiveled towards him and she screamed. Dicks eyes widened.

"Shh! Quiet!" She settled down, holding one hand over her heart dramatically, as she gasped for breath.

Jason had dropped the stick of magnesium and brandished the knife paired with it threateningly. Cole collapsed backwards, and if Lindsey hadn't just announced their position to anyone in a mile-wide radius, Dick probably would have smirked at him.

"We've got to go." He said instead, trying to keep his voice from coming across as short tempered.

"What? Why?" Jason asked.

"Because Lindsey just screamed louder then a coyote and it's not safe here anymore." Dick surged forward and scooped up the fire starter from beside a shocked Jason.

"What?" Lindsey squeaked. She coughed daintily, reaching down to pick at a nail. "I mean, we've been doing all this work..."

 _I bet_. Dick thought. He eyed the pile of branches, most likely picked up from nearby woods in the matter of a few minutes. There was no brush or twigs in sight. _Definitely not going to be helpful_.

Ignoring the thought they probably shouldn't have been put on that job, any job at all actually, he grabbed a hold of Jason's arm and tugged him to his feet.

"Hey, man, what are you doing?" He protested. "What's going on?"

"There's something wrong with this island. My group already met back with Kathie and Pattie. You guys have to join them on the beach. Tell them I'll explain everything when I get back."

"Tell us now, circus freak." Cole demanded, narrowed eyes peering suspiciously at Dick.

"I can't, no time." Dick said dismissively. Sure, he could have laid down a few facts for them, but he needed to get his thoughts in order. Match up all the clues, and figure out what it was bothering him. Besides, if he told them about the head, they'd be terrified as they walked through the woods. "Head that way."

Dick pointed in the direction he came from. "You guys can find the beach group at the supplies pile." A sudden lightning bolt of an idea seized him. He didn't have much time, the other group could be in danger, getting injured or killed as they sat around talking. And he still had to gather everyone else...but what if he didn't have to find everyone?

"After you find them, go together as a group to where they're setting up the shelter. Tell them not to argue."

"Why are we listening to you?" Cole challenged, crossing his arms after standing up, showing off the two and a half feet of height he had on Dick.

"I just want to know what's happening." Lindsey said, and Dick detected a slight tremor in the voice she seemed to be trying to hide.

"Just get going." Dick told her. He turned to Cole and took a breath in preparation. "Listen. I know I'm not your favorite person-"

"Understatement."

Dick gritted his teeth and plowed on, telling himself that his job was to save people, and strangling one wouldn't make Bruce very happy. Besides, he'd be the bigger person, mentally at least.

" _But_ , our lives are in danger. Now isn't the time to be getting into petty arguments, or for you to think you can wail on me until I'm another one of your obedient nerdy slaves."

 _Calm down_. He told himself. _Don't get him angry, it'll just start a fight._

Cole's face was flushed and his hands were curled into fists. Dick decided it was time to make his exit before they got into a scuffle, where he would need to decide if he wanted to take a few hits and go into any other fight with a disability, or beat Cole up and deal with his classmates questioning his identity.

"I've got to get going. You guys go find the group then find the shelter group-"

A snap echoed through the air, like a cracking stick underfoot.

Lindsey shrieked, and Dick Dick lunged forward to close a hand around her mouth. She let out a stiffed scream under Dick's palm.

"Calm down!" Dick hissed. She nodded shakily and fell silent.

"What is-" Jason started.

He quelled under the ferocious glare Dick pinned him with, the years training under Batman urging malicious intent to solidify in his gaze. Dick used one arm to wave them down, and they awkwardly crouched behind trees, shaking bushes and shuffling sticks with their feat loudly. Dick winced at the noise.

He ignored the confused glances and slid forward silently, scrambling halfway up a tree and crouching on a branch. He felt better being higher up from the ground. Like the buildings at Gotham, towering over the night. Or back up on a trapeze...

He peered through the branches, searching for anything that didn't belong. The glint of a blade or gun; a scrap of fabric, muddied or scarlet with blood; the scowling expressions of goons; even just the sight of skin...

A flash of blond curls and a curse in his ears had his nerves relaxing and the hair on the back of his neck settling.

He jumped from his perch.

"What's going on?" Jason whispered. He cowered behind Lindsey, and Dick took a moment to appreciate how different he was from his usual self. Apparently when your life was on the line your true self really was revealed.

" _Bette_." Dick growled, trying to reign in his anger. "You can come on out!" He called.

Bette stepped out from behind a tree, where her hair had been noticeable from the sides of the bark. "Dick..."

" _I told you to stay_." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Why are you here, Bette?"

"The group was getting worried. And you're just a kid..."

It would've taken Dick hours to explain just why that statement was so wrong.

"You can go back with the others. You're lucky you even found us." He would have known if she had been following him from the beginning, she must have set off after him following a conversation with the others.

"What? Dick, no. I came to help."

"Well, I'm leaving." Lindsey decided. "Something is happening and I'm so done with these woods. Something literally bit me." She whined, scratching at a bug bite on her arm.

"Good idea." Dick encouraged. "I'm sure Cole and Jason would love to protect you."

Cole automatically stepped up to Lindsey's side. Jason hesitated. "If Bette's going with you-"

"She's _not._ "

"Then I want to come."

Bette rolled her eyes. "I'll be fine womanizer. Go with Lindsey and Cole."

"Hold it." Dick cut in. "You're going too."

"I'm not." Bette argued.. "You'll have to carry me to the beach."

"Fine." Dick said, his volume raising slightly to match her's. "Jason, you can carry her, right?"

For a second Jason looked like Christmas had come early. "Yeah I-" He caught a glance at Bette's angry scowl and adapted his expression to one that wouldn't look out of place at a funeral. "Yeah I could never do that to a beautiful woman."

"Of course you couldn't." Dick sighed. "Cole-"

Lindsey shook her head. "Nuh uh. Cole, baby. You wouldn't do that to poor little Bette, would you? I mean, then you might not be able to protect me..."

Cole nodded in agreement. Dick clenched his teeth together. "Bette, you've got to go with them. It's dangerous out there, and the more time I take convincing you to stay with these guys, the more the others could get hurt."

Bette's eyes widened, before she scowled at him. "Well what makes you so much better? Why is it safe for you to go out and find them?"

She looked at him with a winning sort of expression.

Dick decided that it was times like these he didn't like having a secret identity.

"Bette, I'll be fine." He channeled as much sincerity into his tone as he could and he was rewarded with her eyes softening. "Okay, now can you _please_ go with the others? _Now_."

Bette considered, before shaking her head. "We're wasting time."

She was right. They had to get going, and there would be classmates out there already...It wouldn't be the end of the world in Bette tagged along. Besides, if he needed to, he could use her to guide everyone back.

"Yeah, yeah, okay. We got to get going." He turned silently. "And remember, you guys go to the shelter with whoever is at the beach right now. You can take the supplies too."

As much as he hated sending civilians into a potentially dangerous situations, he was spread thin at the moment.

"Got it." Jason said in acknowledgment. "Stay safe, Bette-baby."

She snorted, following after Dick.

It just took a few steps further when he heard a shriek from Lindsey. He turned around trying to keep his cool. "And be _quiet_. You don't want the bears to find you."

"Bears!"

He walked away smirking. Bette elbowed him in the side. "There aren't any bears here."

"They don't know that."

They kept walking, and right when he thought Bette would have enough trekking, they heard the scream.

* * *

 **Riley POV, mostly 'cause I need someone in the other group, so it falls upon her to be our eyes and ears**

"99 bottles of pop on the wall, 99 bottles of pop. Take on down and pass it around, 98 bottles of pop on the wall. 98 bottles of pop on the w-"

Riley reached out a smacked Lizzie on the arm, and it worked, to her relief. Lizzie cut off in her newest musical number, the lyrics hanging just out of reach of Riley's thankful ears.

"You could have just said something." Lizzie grouched.

"I did!" Riley all but shouted in annoyance. "That's what got you to stop row row row your boat."

Riley could see Lizzie hiding her smirk, but she decided that getting her to stop singing was a miracle, and that she would take the victory.

Cameron caught Riley's eye. She could see the gratefulness in his expression and she held back a snort of laughter. Cameron was one of the nicer boys she'd met her age, and if even he was annoyed then Lizzie definitely didn't have the best singing voice.

Riley adjusted the strap of her canvas bag. She heard the water collected in the bottles slosh as glass, metal, and plastic containers chinked. She resisted the urge to gulp down half a bottle. She imagined the swampy little stream where they had trickled a quantity of water into their containers. The thought sent a repulsed shudder down her spine.

Even if her mouth ached from a day working under the sun, she wasn't quite ready to touch that stuff. Not until it had been purified.

Lizzie stumbled alongside her, gingerly walking on her sprained ankle. Riley found herself grateful that they had Mr. Robinson with them. If Lizzie's ankle got any more busted, scraping over the unsettling terrain, at least Mr. Robinson would know what to do. He'd be able to fix it.

"Well team." Mr. Robinson began, his tone working in the way that a class knew they were about to get the summary of a project or subject they had been working on. "I don't know how much more we can get done, we've gotten water, and hopefully the other group will have built a fire strong enough to purify it."

Riley and Lizzie exchanged distasteful expressions. Lindsey was a witch, plain and simple, and she had the brains of a squirrel. Throw in Jason and Cole's scattered brain power, and they had almost as good a chance of getting that fire going as Riley did finding a working boat or any other way off the island.

Mr. Robinson continued to speak. "Now, perhaps it would be best to turn back, before we get lost."

They all shrugged.

"Sounds fine to me." Cameron said. He always answered the teachers as an equal. Riley figured it was a nerd thing.

Mr. Robinson ran a hand through his curly black hair. "Okay then, guys, let's just turn around and-"

Blood squirted out of his ajar mouth and his lips stretched into a silent grotesque scream.

He slumped over, the blade of a crudely sharpened knife jutting out of his jugular, coated with the blood that slipped soundlessly off the metal, before leaking into the ground in a stream of droplets.

It took a moment for Riley to realize what was happening. Lizzie was screaming, covering the sound of gargling from their teacher. Cameron had seized a jagged stone from between two snaking roots and holding it at the ready above his head. His eyes flicked sharply over the seemingly innocent woods.

Riley didn't do anything. She didn't think to rush over like in the movies, and hold a dying mans hand. She didn't try to push cloth against the wound to stem the everlasting stream of scarlet. In fact, under her foggy gaze she wasn't even sure if he was still alive. The tremors rocking his body could be muscle spasms.

It took a second, long enough for Lizzie to stop screaming, for Riley to come to a realization.

Where...where had the knife come from?

She got her answer in the form of a shadow. A man, taller than any of them and wider than all three put together, sidestepped out of a tree. In the midst of the terror, confusion, horror, Riley had the time to wonder how he had fit behind the obstacle. She had another second to wonder if she would be fast enough to run. Leave Lizzie and her throbbing ankle. Cameron and his nerdy legs.

And she hated herself for it.

Why was she standing there helplessly like a child learning to take her first steps? Why couldn't she urge her frozen muscles into motion, to do something? Something besides running and abandoning her classmate and friend.

The man seemed to have no problem moving. He grunted and swung a leg forward, stepping out into the light and throwing his features into relief.

His nose was bulbous and his hair was stringy and blond, with the outgrown remains of a military cut. Mean eyes, muddy brown and cruel, took in their hopeless stand. And then, he had the gall to laugh.

A deep heaving chuckle that sent lightning racing down her spine. He reach out with one arm, one thick arm covered with ropy muscles, and seized a windy branch sprouting from a tree. His claw-like fingernails dug grooves into the bark and...

He ripped it off like paper.

The wood splintered and crumbled in his grasp. Riley's throat unclogged, allowing her one thick swallow of nerves, before shutting down.

The muddy gaze flitted away from Cameron, his lips tugging into a smirk at the sight of the rock, the same one that slowly dipped lower and less threateningly with each second.

They flicked to Lizzie, taking in her wrapped ankle, and ghostly pale skin, before landing on Riley.

His glare burrowed into Riley's mindless stare, like a sharp knife slicing through her emotions and leaving them cut up ribbons. They twisted into a tapestry of blurring colors and strangled her senses.

His snarling lips pulled back wider, into a gruesome display that couldn't pass for the intended smile in a lifetime. His boot flicked out, nudging the mess of bloody hair that belonged to their teacher. He angled his head, so Mr. Robinson's slack jaw was pressed against the ground, his neck craned at a impossible angle. More blood guzzled out of the knife wound, seeping into the dirt and coloring the swirling mix of muddy crimson dirt.

Riley had watched horror movies, usually in the dead of night curled up on a couch with Lizzie, popcorn in their hair and hands still sticky from ice cream. She'd watched the climatic scenes, screaming for people to grow a brain and keep from descending into the basement. She'd watched as they died, brutal sticky endings. But then, the movie would end. The credits would roll, and her and Lizzie would slink into a uncomfortable sleep, eyeing the dark corners of the room.

And watching the man smile right now, she just couldn't help but wish the credits would do their job.

"Get away from him!" Lizzie snarled, eyes wide with fear and knees knocking together, but fists clenched and attitude intact. Riley felt something boiling in her stomach. A fierce protective feeling. For her classmates. Her best friend. Her teacher.

The man's mouth opened, and Riley realized they were about to hear him speak. "Oh, don't worry. We have an understanding." His tone was deep and unforgiving. Thick with gruffness.

Riley felt it all, the tangled emotions she'd bottled up since the plane, and she let them all go. "Like _hell_! Get _away_ from our teacher!"

She knelt down and scooped up a block of rotting wood, and without thinking about the consequences, chucked it straight at his face.

He batted it aside, letting it smash against a tree and fall apart. Riley's mouth went dry.

He laughed again.

"That was good, little girl." He rumbled.

"Riley!" Cameron hissed, eyes wide. He'd scooted to her side, and Lizzie to her other. She noted that Lizzie had acquired a blunt branch and Cameron still optimistically clung to his rock. The man reached down, and in a slice of blinding glare, a knife was released from its holster, hung from his cargo pants. Riley was stunned by how fast he was able to grasp the tool.

And suddenly, it was flung right by her, whistling past her neck. She jumped, and she must have nearly touched the moon.

"Ri!" Lizzie screamed. Cameron threw his rock strait at the man, finally. But it was no more effective than the wood had been.

Riley's shaking fingers reached up and trailed through her hair, or at least, where she thought her hair had been. Instead, it now lay in brown swirling piles, at her feet. Her hair length now chopped off below her ear on one side, instead of the middle of her back.

"I like you." The man decided, grounding her back to reality. She stopped caressing the ends of her hair and twitched. What did it matter? Mr. Robinson and so many more were laying dead on that very island. "I remember, back when I was a human, how hard it was to make a stand against those who hold power. That was before I was saved of course."

It all clicked.

The way he'd batted aside their projectiles so effortlessly, crushed the thick branch so easily. Shoved a knife straight through Mr. Robinson's throat...

"Y-you're a meta?" Cameron said.

"I'm a god." The man said, and this time, he sounded testier. Riley had a feeling no matter what he said, no matter how much he said he liked them, any minute the fun from this game would go stale and he would disregard them like broken toys.

Of course, to be a broken toy, they would have to be broken first.

"You three have fire though. For a human."

"Thanks." Riley said dryly, wishing to all she held dear that her voice would stop cracking in fear. "That's all I've ever wanted, a god telling me I have fire."

"Aspiration is commendable." He said, but it sounded like a canned line, something prodded into his memory constantly enough he could recite it in his sleep. "Now, as much as I wish we could have a bit more fun, I've got a job to do."

He stalked toward them, unafraid, without even drawing his knife.

He didn't need to, the ground practically shook with every step he took. Riley imagined the thumps to be similar to the roaring of blood bounding in her ears. The way her heart squeezed painfully increasingly faster.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

He came closer, and they stumbled back in a clumsy retreat. Riley's bag slipped down her shoulder, but she didn't think to get rid of it. Lizzie was clutching at her own and Cameron's hung limply.

"Sorry, kids. It seems like your times up."

He caught the branch Lizzie swung at him, the same heft as if she had just swung a bat at the man. The branch was flung to the side, right out of Lizzie's grasp, the bark scrapping at her tender palms.

Lizzie screamed again, the sharp expression of the man, bordering on boredom as he approached, feeding their fear. Riley couldn't help it, she screamed too. Cameron whimpered besides him.

And suddenly, in a move of justice, a knife sprouted from the mans throat.

He didn't die like Mr. Robinson, the knife had plunged right through the spinal cord, severing it, and his life, almost instantaneously. Riley heard someone shriek, it might have been her.

The blade was torn back, out of the neck, as the great teetering form slumped forward, crashing into the ground in a wall of mutinous flesh.

"Go!" Dick Grayson cried, pointing sharply in one direction towards the woods.

Riley didn't need to be told twice. She grabbed Lizzie, and hoisted her best friend and her busted ankle, along with her. Cameron grabbed Lizzie's other side to steady them.

A startled shriek from behind had her glancing back. Bette Kane was kneeling besides their teacher, taking in his limp form, hands over her mouth. Dick Grayson had a knife drawn, staring into the semi-circle of men who had apparently a _ppeared_ out of the woods.

His gaze flicked to them and his eyes widened. "Go! I told you to go!"

Riley nodded shakily and pushed herself to continue.

Dick turned to glare at Bette. "Bette! Lead them back! Watch the woods!"

His orders were crisply cut and clear, but Bette looked down at the frozen expression of their teacher and she seemed unable to move her limbs. Riley understood, she had just dealt with a concrete body.

"Bette!" Dick warned. The men had started to laugh in harmony, words mixed in with the babble in a mad swarm of noise.

"Saved! Saved! Saved!" Riley flung herself out of sight, blundering through the forest with the chant following her and the others. "Saved! Saved! Saved!"

Riley gave a dry sob.

"Try and keep it down!" Suddenly Bette was pounding through the forest alongside them, her gait unbalanced but strong. "Dick was really worried about noise earlier."

"Wh-where's Dick?" Cameron gasped. He looked back, as if expecting him to be right on their tail.

Bette didn't say anything.

"Bette! Did he come or not!" Lizzie almost shouted.

"Quiet!" Bette hissed back.

Lizzie stopped, shaking off their help and putting a halt on any forward progress. "We're just going to leave him with those..." She trailed off furiously, unsure if they were men or meta's.

Riley knew they shouldn't have left him. The idea of the thirteen year old trying to deal with a dozen possible meta's, or thugs, was cruel to even imagine, and they had done just that. But he had sounded so sure of himself, so used to the pressure of trying to keep everything together under impossible circumstances. She'd just...let go. Let herself listen to the orders and leave.

Now the guilt was gnawing at her, but she also knew that he was a skinny boy against those monstrous forms. He wouldn't last more than however long he wanted him to last.

And they would be next.

"He's probably already dead!" She spat. "So pull up your big-boy pants, boys and girls. 'Cause we're the next in line."

Bette recoiled, Cameron shook, Lizzie stared. Riley grabbed Lizzie's arm and pulled her forward.

This time everyone followed silently, the only sound their labored breathing.

* * *

 **Chris's point of view, mostly 'cause I've already written with him at the helm and I've got a handle on how his mind works**

They'd just made it to the shelter.

Thomas, Avery, and Elijah had done a fair job. They'd taken shredded plastic bags and fabric to torn to be of much use, and shoved them onto the braided grass structures woven in between pieces of wood stacked diagonally against a massive fallen tree.

The fallen tree's roots had uprooted, now sitting clumped with dirt, leaving the tree's base sitting rotated. The top of the tree had fallen so it landed on a stone, creating a straight beam that went straight across the two bottom bases.

They hadn't collected enough wood to span across the whole tree, so the sticks only made it the quarters of the way. Even less was filled in with the only installation they had on hand, but most of it was knotted with vines and it looked sturdy.

Standing wouldn't work out, but they'd be able to squeeze in and sleep the best they could.

"I hope Bette's alright." Ava murmured. She had just finished recounting their harrowing encounter with the head in a hollow voice. And ever since they had finished Ava had been sending sparring glances towards the ominous treeline.

"She's fine." Avery told her comfortingly, hands busy knotting ruined clothing together in an almost rectangular blanket. "We'll probably have to share..." She muttered distractedly.

"Sounds fine to me!" Thomas grinned winningly. "Which lucky lady am I paired with?"

"You've got me, buddy." Chris walked over and wrapped an arm around the other boys shoulders teasingly.

"Oh gee, thanks." Thomas grunted sarcastically.

It felt good, having a normal interaction with his friend, even if the memories of a rotting skull kept trying to distract him.

"Hey, Elijah!" Chris called. Elijah looked up from where he sat on the other side of the shelter's cleared area. Pretty much just a circle where they had shoved any debris the side.

"Yeah?" Elijah called.

"How are you guys doing setting up the fire?"

Elijah looked at his 'group'. Jason had gone over to try and help Avery, and moved on to Ava once he'd been rejected once. Cole and Lindsey, however, had just plopped onto the ground, Lindsey on Cole's jacket. Cole had begun with the genius idea of slamming the magnesium fire stick against a rock a few times. That was when Elijah had stepped in.

He'd managed to salvage a sheet of directions, half water logged, from the kit they'd found the fire starter in. Elijah had jumped in easily, trying to get a handle on the Lindsey and Cole so they could sleep warmer that night.

Elijah looked down at the bundle of brush, dried grass, twigs, sticks, and a few branches they'd gathered so far.

"Um...we're getting somewhere? I'm just trying to get this together..." He stared in confusion at a knife and the block of magnesium.

"Okay...yeah." Chris agreed, trying to sound encouraging. He noticed that since the group had deemed him some type of leader or something along those lines, he'd been trying to _act_ like one. Mr. Robinson was out with the other group, and until they came back Chris couldn't help but feel slightly responsible for how this group managed.

They worked for a while, trading conversation and tossing materials they'd lugged up from the beach. The shelter slowly came along, Elijah managed to get a pile of magnesium together and a spark to light it up. After a few anxious minutes while the spitting flame was surrounded by a group of hopeful teenagers, they managed to get it steady and slowly eat away at a pile of wood.

Cole, Thomas, Elijah and Lindsey had went to collect firewood from nearby, not even out of sight. Chris couldn't help but sigh as he watched Lindsey lean against a tree, still studying that same nail that had been giving her grief all day.

Kathie and Pattie had gone to help Avery and Ava with stuffing the shelter and making blankets. And Chris was left watching the fire, thoughts wondering as he worried about how Dick, Bette and the other group was doing.

To keep the anxious pit he had for a stomach at bay, he pondered whether or not he should head over a confront Lindsey, maybe pair her with a low-key job and at least make her somewhat useful.

Then the sound of thundering footsteps broke through the treeline.

Bette, a hobbling Lizzie, Riley, and Cameron broke through the vegetation and scrambled to the center of the clearing, only sparing a glance for their surroundings before collapsing, exhausted to the ground.

Chris had a few moments of realizing Riley was missing almost half her hair, Bette's hands were stained with blood, Cameron's hands were shaking like a vibrator, and Lizzie's eyes were staring unseeing.

Bette gave a shuddering sob. "Mr. Robinson and D-Dick a-are dead!"

Chis dropped a piece of firework.

* * *

 **Audience POV thingy again, it's been a bit so let's see what the world has to say about all these turns of events!**

The screen flickered to darkness.

A startled silence rushed over crowds everywhere, quieter then the world had ever been seen. No one seemed to know what to do.

 **Hey everybody! Guess who's back! It's your saaaaaaaaavior!**

Angry expressions switched over grieving features faster than you could blink. Mutinous shouts filled the air.

 **Oh no, none of that now...We've just had so much fun! I'd hate to spoil the happy mood!**

They definitely didn't look happy.

 **Now, I'll be seeing all of you later, and we can watch just how gruesome Mr. Dick Grayson's demise is! If there is one...**

He broke off back into his awful, bone rattling laugh. The crowds had fallen silent once again.

 **I guess we'll get to see if he'll be _flying_ away like a bird!**

The Justice league stiffened, at least, the ones who knew Robins secret identity. It almost seemed like this guy was referring to his secret identity.

 **So tune on in! And we'll get this show on the road!**

The screens flickered back to normal, but the people stared with emotion in their gazes.

 **AN: Alright! I'm just going to read through this quick before posting it, 'cause I'm s'posed ta be in bed and all that...(I'll be up reading fanfiction till four...I already freaking know it...) so sorry if there is any grammar or any other type of mistake. I'll fix it later or whatever...I just want to get this out, otherwise it'll be bugging me all night.**

 **PLEASE review, because it's great to hear ideas of what you think is happening and where you think it might go. It also makes it easier to plot out the next chapters if I get a feel for whats being sought after.**

 **So, like normal, thanks for reading!**


	7. The League

**AN: WHOA! So yeah, last chapter ha** **d the most reaction out of anything so far! So thanks a lot for that! I can see now I'm getting a lot of different theory's out of you guys about the whole 'Dick just freaking killed someone' thing. I promise, I have a good explanation for making him break the number one rule...that is...if he broke it. Ha ha, I'm evil, you'll have to wait to figure it out.**

 **Also, a guest pointed out Dick's whole tracker thing, and no, I didn't forget about it...just forgot to type it up. So yeah, I meant to mention it in the chapter with Batman, but I totally didn't, so...yikes.**

 **I'll try and get that remedied soon...**

 **Also I know the way I'm making the Justice League work isn't right, but I already had it all written out before I realized my mistakes...so, sorry.**

 **But golly, or whatever, I forgot I was trying to make these author notes smaller...BYE**

* * *

 **Now, I had some asking for more Bruce, so here you go. A sneak peak. Told in Flash's (Barry Allen!) POV (Cause I have a bit of a soft spot for the flash family, and he's the founder that I feel acts the easiest to write...)**

He was the fastest man alive. The world went by in a blur if he jogged, he skimmed over water, could take out bad guys in the time it would take other heroes to scratch their nose's.

And at that moment, he was almost willing to give it all up.

His hand moved quickly up and down, patting his knee in a way that reminded him of his early days as the flash. It was a trait his nephew Wally had picked up, naturally becoming a nervous or bored habit, or even just something to do when a speedster was adjusting to the craving for speed.

He hadn't had to deal with it for years.

Flash knew that time didn't stop, it was a continuous force and had no business standing still. At that moment, however, he was beginning to suspect the digital clock popping out of the watchtowers wall was broken. It certainly _seemed_ broken.

Just how long was a minute anyway? Because these seemed more like hours. Or eons, eons worked too. Just ticking away closer to four, passing over small black blocks that symbolized minutes, and reaching for the bold two nearly a quarter of the way around the clock. Only a little over two hours until they reached four o'clock. And twenty-four hours after that where they would have another episode to watch.

"Hey, Flash. You doing alright?" Green Lantern asked, startling him out of his thoughts, and the darker turn they were spiraling down.

Flash nodded, sighing. "Yeah, yeah, I'm good. It's just...you saw how Bats was..."

Green lantern clenched his jaw, withholding a shudder.

* * *

 ** _Hours ago- Justice League headquarters- watchtower...whatever_**

 _It was after the 11 O'clock showing, the Flash had sat, uncharacteristically stiff in his uncomfortable chair. The feel of the hard handles clenched between his gloved hands._

 _His eyes peered at the vast screens covering the walls, all flipped back to normal screensavers, a change from automatic displaying of the grimy faces of teenagers as they fought to survive._

 _The hollow ache in his chest, knowing there was nothing he, or any of the other League members, could be doing to help._

 _It was a blur, his time slouching through the hallways in a pack with the rest of the founders, heading for their private meeting room. He supposed it was so they could discuss what they had seen. He didn't want too, and was pretty certain no one else did either. But there were always downsides to the life they lived._

 _Six founding league members were gathered around their table, Batman's seat empty._

 _Each of the founding member's knew Robin's true identity, all of them knew why Batman was absent._

 _The silence was overwhelming. Normally, at this point in awkwardness, Flash would smirk through a sarcastic comment and get the ball moving, taking the heat behind a watered down bat-glare like a champ._

 _He couldn't muster up an ounce of humor today._

 _However, it seemed like Superman had more bravery than anyone else silently surrounding the table at that moment. He gave the ball a prod this time, getting it moving in a direction no one wanted to explore._

 _"Did Dick just..." Superman trailed away, unable to finish his allegation. And Flash knew why. Batman, and his protegee had always stuck true to their moral code. Barry could still remember the rare occasions where Robin had been strung up and delivered beating's of various levels. Batman had always ensured those who tortured his bird were drinking through a straw and sitting uncomfortably in a full body cast for months._

 _But he'd never killed them._

 _Ever._

 _And neither did Robin._

 _"The camera angle was off..." Wonder Woman pointed out. She had a soft spot or Robin, most of them did. He'd been the first child superhero, and they had all grown more protective because of that. He had seemed more like a nephew to most of the_ _League. Unfortunately, even if Diana loved Robin, her defensive and trailing statement was hesitant._

 _"He was protecting his classmates." Hal Jordan pointed out. ( **AN: Sorry for**_ **another _interruption, but I'm not entirely sure if I got the right Green Lantern or not.)_**

 _"I don't know what to make of this situation, Robin has never seemed to be the type of hero to do something like this." Aquaman spoke out. "He's always been the epitome of what a hero should be."_

 _"Still though, he could have been panicking." Superman said, looking like each word he spoke was painful to force out._

 _"Robin doesn't panic." Flash decided to join the conversation. He knew Robin, or Dick, or whoever he was when he and Wally were lounging around his house._

 _"The Flash is correct." Martian Manhunter_ _acknowledged. "Robin is cool-headed under pressure, he would not take these actions without reason."_

 _"So...what?" Green Lantern began, hands tossed up in exasperation. "He has some reason to kill that man? Something that makes it okay?"_

 _"He has to." Superman said firmly, trying not to consider the other possibility. The thought that Robin could easily thrust a blade through a person from behind in a devastating blow of death and destruction was evidently more than Superman could bear. "I don't know what it is...but something isn't right about this situation. Of everyone, Robin might just be one of the hero's least likely to-"_

 _"-go dark side." Hal Jordan finished._

 _"Yes." Superman agreed tiredly. Clearly he would have phrased it differently._

 _"But that brings up the question." Wonder Woman decided. "Just_ what _is going on? Is the island or the man responsible for the classes kidnapping responsible? Was that an actual human he killed? And..."_

 _She trailed off, looking unsure if she wanted to finish._

 _"And, what?" Aquaman asked, sitting forward and directing his natural piercing gaze to burrow into her. "What is it that has you so hesitant?"_

 _Diana looked down at the table. "Do we know if that is actually Robin? It's not as though cloning isn't an entirely unfeasible explanation."_

 _Flash felt as if a snake had uncoiled in the pit of his stomach and slithered up his throat to choke him. If, and he had to remind himself it was a very big if, the Dick Grayson they had been seeing wasn't the real one, it brought up the question, where was the real one?_

 _No. The Flash shook his head and tried to clear his head, it wouldn't do him any good to buy into an idea like this without knowing the truth._

 _"Okay, all of that aside, at this moment it looks like Dick just killed a man to the public perspective." Superman summed up._

 _"Which he may or may not have done." Aquaman added darkly._

 _Superman continued, choosing not to address the timely interruption. "Now we have to look at how this might backlash on the image of the Justice League."_

 _Flash wanted to shake is head and ask 'who cares?' but he knew that the League operated smoother with the public's' trust. He couldn't afford to buy into emotions at that moment, and neither could anyone else. Even if Dick had been coming around his and Iris's house for years, and practically became a second nephew._

 _"Robin's identity is a closely guarded secret." Martian Manhunter said. "The people of Earth are unaware that Richard Grayson's actions connect at all to the Justice League."_

 _"Well, yeah." Hal Jordan agreed. "It took forever for Batman to warm up enough to trust us with his identity, much less his protegee's."_

 _"But how long will his secret remain hidden? Robin has always had an impressive sense of morality, if the lives of his classmates are in danger, it is possible he would act in a way that would cause some to question his identity." Aquaman argued. "Even if he is able to act in a way to protect his classmates, there is still the chance he is unable to take into account the presence of cameras, and his secret is revealed."_

 _With this twisted explanation the already low moral around the table dropped drastically._

 _"Cheerful." Superman murmured._

 _"Okay, we've established it is possible that Dick's identity is at stake. Not taking into account the obvious problems with this, Robin is not publicly a member of the Justice League." Wonder Woman summed up. "Any backlash on Robin can not legally be tied to the Justice league or preyed upon by the press."_

 _"Yeah, Robins only part of a secret organization within the league, but Bats is pretty obviously a founder. And Robin is clearly his protegee-er-'partner'. That's going to leave some nasty recoil on us." Flash spoke up, feeling as though his stomach was wiggling into knots._

 _Green Lantern opened his mouth, as if to add his opinion to the turmoil surrounding their table already._

 _He was interrupted by the opening of a door._

 _They all froze at the image of a man draped in his black cape and glowering from under his bat-like cowl._

 _For a moment, no one spoke, just stared at each other at a loss._

 _"Batman, we were just-" Martian Manhunter broke the silence._

 _"I don't care." He growled, and Flash had to give it too him, Bats had a sense of character that stayed strong, depicting courage and strength in even the most stressful times. "Any notable changes in the search so far?"_

 _That was it. No "hello". No "how's the fam'". Nothing._

 _Of course, Flash wouldn't expect anything more from Batman on a good day, much less under the dire circumstances they were facing at the moment. Especially considering no one seemed to want to answer Bats question, something that never happened. When Batman wanted information, he normally got it immediately._

 _Flash winced as Batman's glare landed on him, only letting out a relieved sigh when his eyes flitted over to hover on Superman._

 _Barry had never seen Superman's composure crumble so quickly._

 _"Clark." Batman reprimanded harshly._

 _Wincing, Superman began to speak, looking resigned to whatever anger the Batman needed to get out. "Well, the program you engaged on the Watchtower has continued to scan Earth. So far it hasn't come up with anything leading to the current location of the class or Dick, but it has worked its way through the automatically recorded footage from the day they went missing."_

 _"Let me see." Batman growled._

 _Superman nodded to Barry, and he zipped out the door, dodging League members and sliding around corners. He stopped at the monitors, unplugging something that looked like a UPS drive, but larger. Bats had designed it, and Flash didn't feel the need to understand it. He just hoped it was the right one. Otherwise he had an angry Bats to face._

 _Hardly a moment had passed by the time he returned to the room._

 _Flash handed it over to Superman, who dutifully plugged it into a screen, spanning the full size of one of the walls. A map flickered to life._

 _"Here." Superman narrated, gesturing to a red pinpoint in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. "That's where they went down."_

 _The slits in Batman's cowl narrowed noticeably._

 _"And this..." Superman typed on buttons slowly, trying to navigate his way through the confusion of the new system. "Is the last footage we've received from their coordinates."_

 _Still though, it took to long apparently._

 _Batman strode forward, bringing with him the wrath of inconspicuous shadows. His aura made Superman beeline out of the way, in a fashion only the protective nature of a Bat for his Bird could._

 _In a few brief strokes, fingers straightened with tension, Batman had pulled up the footage a plane flying over the spanning blue waters of an ocean._

 _Even with some of the most innovative technology originating from Earth, the watchtowers cameras could only do so much. The image was fuzzy, and the plane's edges fizzled with pixels._

 _And yet even the low quality didn't deter the rooms occupants from leaning forward and squinting. Flash himself could feel his limbs vibrating, even if he already knew how the captured moments on the screen would play out._

 _They only watched for a moment, but in that time Flash felt his heart squeeze, again._

 _The plane flew unhindered._

 _Until it didn't._

 _In a split second a blinding flash seemed to leak out of the very molecules making up the air, spreading out in a blinding light and engulfing the plane._

 _Wonder Woman let out a gasp, her eyes shining._

 _The light spluttered out, like a flame squandered by the control of a human. The uncontrollable obliterated and erased. Gone._

 _Batman didn't move. He stared at the screen, the fabric of his gloves cracking as his fingers tightened into fists. Flash imagined impressions being forced into the malleable material, matching the creases and callouses covering the mans hands, slowly deepening in detail._

 _Flash shook his head again, noticing that in the time it took for his thoughts to flutter out of proportion, Wonder Woman had regained her composure._

 _She stood, sliding across the room with diluted purpose. In one meaningful movement, her hand clasped the shoulder of the man._

 _He shrugged her off, and she didn't protest, only reaching forward to close the window now broadcasting empty ocean. The loneliness of this Atlantic seemed nothing like the turbulent waves Flash sped over when he crossed continents._

 _He knew which he preferred._

 _No one spoke, but the silence could only last so long. Even with Batman's anger growing to palpable waves of emotion._

 _"What we can gather, is that this is some sort of unknown source of power, originating from a meta-human, alien species, or magical individual." Martian Manhunter summed up. Flash was glad he had, Batman was less likely to blow a fuse when talking to the green skinned man."We're working to track down the source using various algorithms you've installed, but progress has been limited, both with the variety the programming must discern from, and the constant interruptions."_

 _Batman grunted._

 _King Orin took this as a sign to continue. "A few of the faster league members took a few laps, spreading out from the point the children vanished. Mainly Flash and Superman."_

 _Batman grunted, but turned towards Barry expectantly, who felt like his heart was crawling into his throat. Joining the metaphorical snake coiled around his neck._

 _"I-uh, well, we were searching the_ world _." Barry stressed. Looking hesitantly over at Superman, who didn't look any more excited to answer than he did. "We didn't find, uh, anything, but we're planning to go back out in a few hours-"_

 _Batman stepped closer, seemingly towering over the speedster. But he kept going, pacing back and forth on the other side of the room._

 _The Flash fought off a heart attack._

 _"Batman." Wonder Woman said curtly, he turned to glance at her. "We'll find them. We'll find Dick. But we have to consider all possibilities. They could be in another dimension, they could be on a different planet, this could all just be an illusion and the kids are trapped in some lair."_

 _"And that's not to mention all the other possibilities." She went on to list all the ideas they'd run through before Batman got there._

 _Batman didn't say a word. Through the whole situation._

 _"Flash, Superman. Go for a lap." His voice was gravelly as ever, and Flash suddenly felt like a weight the size of an elephant had been placed on his shoulder's._

 _He had stamina, kind of needed it with his type of job, but he'd been lapping the world all day. Scanning streets and buildings one town-county-and-country at a time. Only coming back when his communicator was filled with the warning from Martian Manhunter of the time. Returning to the watchtower to witness the next tragedy lined up._

 _He'd felt pain and the feeling he'd aged years in the time it took to continue watching the program._

 _He hadn't been eating all he needed since the whole ordeal began, and even then, in the room with the others, he felt his stomach yearn for food._

 _He hadn't slept peacefully since it began either. And he was exhausted._

 _Flash wasn't sure he could go much longer, and Superman would be just as tired._

 _"Batman-" Superman began hesitantly._

 _"Clark." Superman faltered. And Flash saw others jolt alongside him. Batman had always been the pickiest concerning their identity's, and enforced the rule they didn't refer to their civilian selves while they were in costume, strictly. The Batman, terror of the night and the thing in Gotham villains nightmares, ripped away his cowl._

 _Stepping forward he looked levelly at Superman. His jaw was clenched, like a levee holding back a hurricane. Red rimmed brown eyes stared. The color similar to the muck he trecked through on a weekly bases, steps bringing him further from the innocence all people started with and closer to the obscure oblivion of knowing and pain. His normally well kept appearance had debilitated, stubble lining his lower face._

 _Flash felt like staggering back._

 _"Clark, my-my_ son _is out there." His eyes hardened, like moisture sucked from dirt and leaving it hardened into a shell. "He could be dying. He could be dead. And I can't do anything. I can stand here, and click away on every keyboard I can find. I can scan research we've gathered until my eyes bleed. I can beat up every criminal I can find, and I can attempt to torture vital information out of each one of them. And I'm doing it, but it's not working. I can't_ help _Dick. But maybe you can."_

 _Batman grabbed a piece of paper out of his utility belt, holding it in a way that revealed the scrawling of ink, patterned into letters._

 _"So I'm asking, not as Batman, but as a father. I need you to go to each of these locations, and search through every damn haystack you find till you come up with a needle."_

 _"I-" Superman seemed at a loss. It was widely acknowledged that Superman was 'closer' to Batman than almost any other hero. Batman was emotionless, but Superman could get through a conversation with him and it was considered a miracle. This wasn't emotionless. This was something else, the exact opposite._

 _"Clark, Barry." The Flash started, staring wide eyed at Bruce as the attention in the room, equivalent to that of a bomb, shifted to land on him. "Please. I need this. Dick needs this."_

 _Oh my god._

 _Oh my god._

 _Oh my god._

 _Barry chanted in his head, trying to determine if he had died and was now in some post-death hallucination. Or maybe Gorilla Grodd had gotten a hold of him and decided to engage in some mind games. Both seemed like options that made more sense than_ Batman _pleading to him._

 _"Will you do it?" His voice was harder now._

 _Barry was about to sigh, thinking about the soreness of his legs. Until the memories resurfaced._

 _He thought about the first time he'd met Dick. Small and frail, dawned in his new vibrant costume and bringing a flare of theatrics to Bat's dark demeanor. He wallowed in the thoughts of Wally hoisting him onto his back, and speeding along as his surrogate brother giggled against the wind. At least, until they ran into an annoyed Speedy. He remembered waking up to the screams ripping out of the young boys throat as he and Wally slept through the night under Barry and Iris's roof._

 _Feeling like his tongue was made of sandpaper, but his legs titanium, Barry nodded._

 _"I'll go." The Flash declared, holding out a hand for the paper._

 _"Me as well." Superman agreed. His eyes had an almost misty quality to them, as if the man of steel was also reliving Robin's star moments._

 _Bruce, because Barry now recognized they were no longer staring into the harsh face and cold exterior of Batman, straightened out the paper and handed it to Barry._

 _He couldn't help it, as soon as the paper was thrust into his grasp his eyes flicked over the words immediately, taking in the list of addresses._

 _"I'd go myself, but even if I took the best transportation available, I wouldn't be able to give each location the most attention in the time I'd like. Things could be...overlooked." He forced the words out uncomfortably. He was_ Batman _. He wasn't used to being unable to perform to the extent he wanted. But Barry understood, he was desperate, and he wanted to give Dick his best shot at being found._

 _"I get it." The Flash agreed. "Yeah, I'll-I'll go."_

 _Barry looked over at Superman. "I'll take this half?"_

 _Superman nodded in agreement. "Yeah, got it."_

 _"I'll be continuing work, overseeing the progress of the watchtower's resources." Batman said abruptly._

 _"H-hey, wait. What about me?" Hal Jordan interrupted. Everyone looked at him and he shrugged defensively. "Hey that was a hell of a speech there. I'd like to lift a hand or two. Dick's a good kid."_

 _"I would aspire to be of use as well." Aquaman spoke up._

 _"And me." Wonder Woman put in._

 _Batman nodded jerkily. "Aquaman, if you could scan the seas for any sign. It appears that if Dick is on Earth still, he's centered on an island. That falls right in the middle of your territory."_

 _Aquaman sighed. "I've already put out my orders to report any strange behavior. I'll use whatever new information was brought up at the previous showing and alter what I've described."_

 _Batman nodded, his own method of gratitude. "Lantern, speak to the other heroes. Round up whoever has technical prowess and have them begin working on retaining the footage from the newest footage for viewing."_

 _"That isn't going to take very lo-"_

 _"Diana." She nodded, already waiting for her duty. "Continue with the Leagues normal responsibilities. Even in light of recent situations we must remain vigilant. This is an attack against the superhero community, and in turn, Earth. We must be prepared for further repercussions."_

 _She nodded briskly._

 _"Martian Manhunter." The green skinned man nodded in acknowledgment. "I've placed micro-trackers in Dick, multiple are implanted in his person. The tech doesn't seem to be working, but try to focus on the bio part along with the medical staff."_

 _"Hal." Batman faltered, looking resigned to find a job for the man. After all, he wouldn't be very helpful to whoever he scrounged up for tech support. "Hit the streets. I've talked to most of my squealers in Gotham. Tracked down some people that might know something. That's how we got the addresses. Grab a few others and hit the major cities. Tell Queen to get a move on in Starling."_

 _Batman turned, without a word, and made for the watchtower computer system._

* * *

 **Still Flash's point of view, just reminded y'all that we're back to before the flashback. Actually, that would be just a bit after where the flashback ended...**

Flash ran a hand over his head, the cowl/mask of his suit pulled back. He carefully slid his mask back into place.

"Well, Flash. You better get going, I've got to, 'hit the streets'." With a forced grin Hal slapped him on the shoulder and went to meet Green Arrow and Super girl, ready to depart together and scour through the messiest corners in the messiest cities they could fine.

Flash looked down at the paper in his hand. Superman had already left, with a written copy of all the addresses he had to hit. Flash glanced at the first at his list again.

 _Anogen, Eris:_ _377 Tinkin street,_ _Vernon,_ _California_ **(AN: I'm freaking spilling this out of random syllables. This is in no way a real address. Sorry, not that creative. And for anyone living in the actual Vernon California, sorry again, I'm just grabbing some random place on the map. The descriptions I give isn't even what it actually looks like. I don't think, at least.)**

Flash took a minute to wonder who the heck named their kid, Eris Anogen, before he zipped over and typed some coordinates into the zeta-beam. The closest one to the location.

Barry blinked rapidly, trying to dissipate the blinding clouds of color in his eyes. Ignoring it for now, he shook out his limbs and crouched into a runners position, trying to disregard the aching of his limbs.

It didn't take long for him to run down the streets of the country, stopping right at the top of Eris's street.

The houses were rundown, in shambles. Lawns unkempt and garbage littered the land. Flash ran quickly behind the backside of Eris's house, sliding up to the wooden shingles and peering into the living room through a dirty, clouded, window.

He was home, sitting sprawled out on a mud stained couch with a beer sitting tilted in his hand, condensation accumulating into rivulets of water. His eyes were trained on the droning of a cracked TV hanging on a wall, clashing with the remains of flowery wallpaper that had clearly been torn to shreds as someone sought to rid the house of its design.

Flash zipped around the house once more, sneaking peeks through each uncovered window. No one stood on the filthy kitchen tiles, or laying on the desolate mattresses in either of the two bedrooms.

The Flash shook his head. He had only done some scouting because of how much the other heroes, Batman specifically, growled that it was best to make it a habit to check out surroundings and plotting a plan before taking action. With a funny feeling Flash realized it _had_ become habit. Damn it Bats.

Shaking away the knowledge, he zoomed over and knocked on the door. He was in costume, breaking into a civilian household under the public's scrutiny would not be great for the Justice Leagues image.

The mixture of voices form the TV was muted, and the shaking of springs reverberated through the thin walls.

Someone cursed, a few thuds Barry assumed were footsteps, and then the door squeaked open on its older hinges.

"What the fu-" The man stopped, gaping open-mouthed at Flash for a moment. Stringy tangles of outgrown hair hung down below his flat ears. His face was average, unremembered with a oily sheen covering his puckered forehead and muddy brown eyes the color of coffee dregs starring up in astonishment, reflecting the vibrant red the speedster had dawned.

"Yeah, Eris Anogen?"

"Uh...erm...ugh..."

"Based on that eloquent response, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that's you?"

Eris spun around and lunged back into the house. One hand propelled the door backwards, in a way that would have slammed it against the door jamb. But he tried to slam the door on the Flash, so it didn't turn out like he expected.

In a...well, flash, Barry threw out one arm and stopped the door in it's tracks. He stepped through the doorway and leapt in front of Eris.

He'd made it half a step.

Flash forced his molecules to calm down, returning himself to normal speed. The mans eyes were wide, mouth ajar in a silent scream.

"I wouldn't try that again if I were you." Flash warned him, struggling to keep his emotions in check and impartial to the situation at hand. But it was _hard_. This man could have something to do with Dick and his class's disappearance.

Eris finally got that scream out, a wailing noise that could have been compared to the protesting of an infant.

Flash stiffened. Eris might have been from a bad neighborhood, but that just meant the cops would be more practiced in responding to 911 calls. Flash didn't feel like forcing himself through the turmoil and paperwork that would come with any issue out of his 'jurisdiction' of Central City.

Eris's eyes looked red-rimmed, with moisture gathering at the corners and a runny nose completing his miserable image. He blubbered insensibly, twitching, before letting out another wail.

Flash sighed, reaching out and seizing the scruff of his dirty flannel, dawned over a coffee-stained tank top.

"Wha-" He never finished. Flash charged up his speed, like a surge of adrenaline, and they were off. He made sure they didn't go so fast, he wanted Eris conscious and able to talk by the time they made it to a suitable location. He pulled up in the first abandoned alleyway he found, and shoved Eris away from himself immediately.

Eris cried out, leaning against the wall, legs buckling and barely able to prop up his weight.

"Okay Mr. Anogen, I just want to have a word." Flash fought to keep a temper under control, trying to come across as carefree as usual, but failing and ending up sporting a sickening professional manner.

"C-could 'ave d-done th-that a' the h-house." Eris pointed out, his pallor flushing and transforming into a light green. Flash sighed as he kneeled over and vomited into the scummy puddles.

"Well, Mr. Anogen, I think that's going to be the least of your worries." Flash watched as the mans eyes scanned the area thoroughly, lingering on the closer entrance to the open-ended alleyway.

"Well, I-I'm real patriotic. I'll do whatever I need ta."

"That's good. Very good Mr. Anogen." Flash tried to hold back the urge to slam him against the wall and hold him tight by the frayed collar of his shirt.

"Y-yeah."

"Now, what can you tell me about the recent disappearance of-" And Eris bolted.

Flash took a moment to contemplate the idiocy that came with men like him.

He went after him.

* * *

 **Yeah, just a time skip. We're skipping till after they've gone around to all the addresses, because I really don't think it'd be worth it to type it all out. Still Flash POV.**

Flash sighed, reclining back into his chair and feeling the throbbing of his feet, an aching pain inching up his calves. He turned to Green Arrow, occupying the seat next to him. "Hey Oliver, you want to pass me that bar."

The man looked down, eyes locking onto the energy bar Flash was eyeing hungrily. With a sigh he tossed it across the table, right into the the scarlet speedsters gloved hand.

Flash immediately peeled back the wrapper. The crinkling like dinner bells to his ears.

"Rough time?" Green Arrow asked conversationally.

"You could say that." Flash answered, huffing in irritation. "You know how many people come up the with the fantastic idea to run away or toss whatever's on their coffee table at the Flash? Too many."

Olive snorted, massaging his hands, taking care not to pick at his bloody knuckles. "You know how many people think they've got what it takes to dodge an arrow?"

"Too many?" Flash tried.

"Not enough. I swear as soon as they see me they freeze. It's too bad, I really could have used something to take my anger out on."

"I guess the criminals in Starling don't have a brain. You'd be one of the easier League members to take down." He smirked as Oliver let out a noise of indignation.

"Bet I could beat you in a fight." The green-clad man muttered mutinously.

"Yeah right, your arrows would just slip by like they're stuck in honey."

"Guess we'll have to try it some time."

"Guess we would."

...

"You know Roy used to beat Wally all the time. And now Artemis beats him black and blue."

Flash rolled his eyes. "Yeah, then Robin beat both the boys up."

"What about Artemis?"

"Well, Wally probably deserve's it." Flash admitted.

"Probably."

They lapsed into silence for a minute.

"He'll be alright." Green Arrow said finally.

"Huh?" Flash startled, looking up from a fifth energy bar. He'd ran over over grabbed an armful a moment or two ago.

"Robin. That kid's been through worse."

"Yeah, yeah he has." Flash agreed sadly. "I just hope this isn't what tips him off the deep end."

A few more moments of silence.

"Flash!" Barry leaned forward, turning to glance at Superman. The man was striding over, cape billowing out behind him. Flash exchanged a look with Oliver.

"Yeah, what's up Clark?" Superman stood next to their table.

"You successfully went through your half of the addresses Batman dredged up?"

Flash sighed. "Yeah, I tracked them down. Shut down a few drug deals, a mugging, interrupted an underwater basket weaving class-"

"Wait what?" Oliver interrupted.

"Don't ask." Flash warned.

"So did you find anything?" Superman said tiredly. He ran a hand over his face, and through his hair.

"Um, no. Not so much."

Arrow kicked his feet up, against a table and addressed Superman. "What about you? Find anything good?"

"There was one girl. She answered questions, but couldn't own up for any of the time the episodes were running. And she definitely has a track record with the League. Nothing big, just us stopping her minor crime. I brought her to Batman for questioning."

Flash let out a breath. "Well, if she's innocent, you owe that poor girl a fortune. Being interrogated by Batman."

"I know. Bruce didn't look so great when I handed her over. Dinah's watching over the interrogation."

Flash thought back. He hadn't looked so good a few hours ago either.

"That woman's made of strong stuff." Oliver sighed, a grin threatening to control his features at the thought of Dinah.

"Speaking of woman, I should probably be getting back to Iris. Four O'clock's coming up and I don't want to leave her alone to watch another episode." Barry said, chomping down on the last bite of his final energy bar.

"Well, you're coming up tomorrow, right?" Superman inquired.

"Yeah, I'll be here to do another few tours of the world. Maybe we can scope out the Atlantic ocean's surface in depth if there's time."

"Sounds like there isn't much left we can do besides that." Flash agreed. "See you both later."

Green Arrow raised a hand in farewell and Superman nodded his goodbye.

Flash easily waved to League members as he passed, before entering the zeta system.

In a moment, he was back among the population.

 **AN: Alright, sucky chapter and ending, I know. I'm just using this to tie up a few odds and ends, and move give some insight to the Justice Leagues reaction. I'm sorry for the wait, especially with what might be considered cliff hanger ending the last chapter, which I didn't resolve in this one. Oops.**

 **Also yeah, about the whole 'they could track them down through the vegetation and surroundings' and everything else. (That wasn't a quote...) They actually can't, and you'll see why soon. But great job pointing that out, my lovely reviewers.**

 **And I don't know if anyone actually reads these notes (you probably don't even have too, I'm just babbling anyway) but I did say a few chapters ago in my AN that there was something alarmingly obvious to me that still needed to discussed. Well It'll probably come up next chap.**

 **SORRY for the obnoxiously sized note again, I'm horrible at cutting down. Anyway, I'm totally done now. Toodles.**


	8. The Time Limit

**AN: Mmmkay, thanks again for all the reviews and follow's and favorite's and stuff. And no, I didn't mean for that to come across like some stereotypical airhead high school girl from one of those kinda stupid teenage love shows (My opinion, sorry those who enjoy that kind of thing).**

 **Also, I'm sorry to those who think the last chapter was boring. I'm still in middle school, so I'm still getting a handle on writing and how to pace chapters and what to include to keep the story moving and relevant. I'm thankful that I've gotten a chance to learn more while writing this fic. That's why I started writing on FanFiction, well, that and getting to explore my favorite characters!**

 **And, I mention Bette Kane's family, and I have no idea if she actually has siblings or parents or whatever, so please be patient with that whole fiasco, even if it does kinda deviate from cannon.**

 **Alright, enough of the usual babble, filling space thingy, here we go!**

* * *

 **Erm...let's...go...with...that random audience POV thing!** **;p (That's some brand of smiley face, FYI)**

Hands that were dirty, clean, rough, wrinkled, smooth, all over the world pawed through a multitude of different hair colors. Nails were bitten down to the quick or gnawed free of their protective layer of nail polish as people's feet dug into the ground. Dirt, sand, gravel, all shifting in a worldwide orchestral of earth.

Nervous gestures swept through crowds like a wave. A hurricane of whispering or shouting, depending on the surroundings, swarmed over the continents.

And through it all, the clocks ticked. Ticked closer to eleven O'clock.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"Ma'am, could I get a look at that watch of yours?"

"Quell heure est-il?"

"Is it almost eleven?"

"Que hora es?"

Various questions filled the air, heavy with tension.

And so did the comments.

"Mommy? When are the people coming back on TV? It's my favorite."

"You hear the government is wasting all our money on finding those youngin's? I say it's overkill."

"I hope the poor children are alright."

"Do you think that pizza place will still be open? And don't give me any more hassle, I'm not going to throw up if another head shows up in today's."

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Until...

 **"Heeeeelloooo ladies and gentleman! Feel free to bow down to your savior early...you'll all be doing it eventually! Oh, don't look at me like that, you'll come around soon enough!"**

Still, the grimaces on the faces of the world remained intake.

 **"Yikes! Tough crowd! Okay...okay, I'm here to let you in on a little secret."**

Superheroes froze, staring almost uncomprehendingly as the dangerous words fizzled out from where they were typed out on the screen. He wasn't talking about Robin...was he?

 **"I've been watching you...running around like a robin without a head."**

More winces from the superhero community.

 **"And I know, you're all completely at a loss of what to do. Superhero's, you can't find a lead anywhere, no matter how many times you send your scarlet speedster or blue boy scout out for a lap."**

Flash and Superman froze from where they were watching the feed, Flash at home with Iris, and Superman at the watchtower.

 **"And the governments...you aren't even trying to find the class. I mean, sure, you did the whole computer thing...blah blah blah. You watched the satellite feeds, but really, who are you trying to kid? Yourselves? You already know there's no way to find them. Those kids are doomed."**

The parents and families of the children sobbed, or clenched hands of loved one's tightly in their grasp.

 **"And civilians! You're just along for the ride! Absolutely nothing you can do but sit there and slowly bow down to knowledge..."**

Reactions varied. Some looked as if they didn't care, while others had a look of immense disgust on their faces.

 **"Don't worry though! I know this can get a little tedious...but the action will be picking up! So let's get started!"**

And with that ominous declaration, the screen changed. A tidal wave of images flashing in a hypnotic show.

* * *

 _The landscape image of an airplane soaring through the sky._

 _Flashes of conversation, the camera panning through the aisles._

 _Hovering on Bette and Jason._

 _Fading to a different environment after the lingering image of Dick Grayson._

 _Desperate plea's as bloody rivulets stream away from flesh and soaks into grains of sand._

 _Cameron struggling to wake._

 _"Riley? What's wrong-" Eyes blinking wide with astonishment._

 _While gripping her mouth in one hand Riley sobs._

 _"I don't know!"_

 _Dick running a hand tentatively over the back of Elijah's head._

 _"...No skull fracture..."_

 _Hands sawing through bandage with scissors, glinting in the light._

 _Thread poking through the eye of a needle._

 _The voice of the man._

 ** _"Humans are week, easily destroyed. They are my puppets."_**

 _Dick Grayson facing a sneering Cole._

 _The layover of a civilian voice._

 _"Yeah, his parents dies, fell off the trapeze, the kid watched it all."_

 _Lizzie with her hand raised._

 _"-list of things that need to happen-"_

 _The group cross legged in a circle._

 _The group trekking up the sand, back from their examination of the surrounding ocean._

 _"I literally can't feel my legs." Lizzie complains._

 _Voices overlapping of ideas._

 _"I can start." Avery says._

 _A mixture of what the teens are good at._

 _Thomas grinning at Avery._

 _"I'll be happy to oblige."_

 _Avery rolling her eyes. "Idiot."_

 _Mr. Robinson addressing the group._

 _I'm still technically your teacher, and if anything happens it's my responsibility."_

 _Ava calling over her shoulder from beside a tree._

 _"Pick up the pace Chris!"_

 _The shocked expressions of Bette, Ava, and Chris as Dick stared with an unreadable expression._

 _"A head."_

 _The grotesque skull clinging to the remains of fleshy strips._

 _Dick alone besides the skull, clutching a small metal object._

 _"Gross." The word playing over the image._

 _Bette, Ava, and Chris arguing._

 _"I don't know, I just, I just felt like he knew what he was doing."_

 _"Hey, you guys back already?" Pattie yelled._

 _Pattie and Kathie sitting among the luggage._

 _Dick traveling swiftly through the woods._

 _Lindsey, Cole, and Jason sitting in a circle as Jason desperately tried to get a fire going._

 _"Shh! I'm concentrating." Jason chastised._

 _Switching to Lindsey, her scream muffled by Dick Grayson's hand._

 _"Calm down!"_

 _Bette snapping a twig, her eyes wide._

 _Dick sighing with exasperation.  
_

 _"Yeah, yeah, okay. We got to get going."_

 _A scream splitting the abrupt silence of the broadcast._

 _"99 bottles of pop on the wall..."_

 _Riley hitting Lizzie._

 _Mr. Robinson addressing the group of teens._

 _"Okay then, guys, lets's just turn around and-"_

 _A glinting blade protruding from his neck, blood pooling and splashing to ground, staining his shirt front._

 _The giant of a man slipping out of the treeline._

 _His boot reaching out and carelessly nudging the Mr. Robinson's head._

 _"We have an understanding." The man's gruff voice._

 _"Like_ hell _." Riley screaming._

 _"I remember back when I was human...that was before I was saved of course."_

 _"Y-you're a meta?"_

 _"I'm a god."_

 _Cameron, Lizzie, and Riley staring in horror._

 _The man falling, dead, to the ground. A knife wound to the neck._

 _"Go!" Dick Grayson crying out._

 _The kids running, without Dick._

 _Bette, Cameron, Lizzie, and Riley emerging from the tree's grasping for breath._

 _"Mr. Robinson and D-Dick a-are dead!"_

* * *

 **Um...Let's see...I guess we'll go with Bette's POV! Finally some answer's comin' up...**

Bette stared downward, transfixed.

She was still. Lying atop the ragged remains of someone's jacket. She didn't know whose, even though all she would need to do was lift the mangled remains of the collar and scrutinized the neat stitching of someone's name. But she didn't, because as terrible as the thought was, she didn't know if the owner was still alive.

Someone had stuffed a plastic bottle into her hand. Only a few sips worth of water sluggishly drifting back and forth at the bottom. She didn't drink any of it. Just let the plastic slowly heat up in her grasp, even if her throat ached for relief.

Lizzie was sobbing from the other end of the clearing, trying to stifle the misery wracking her body. Out of the corner of her eye Bette noticed Riley curled up beside her.

Bette looked away, her gaze flicking to study the object lying in her lap. Patty had tentatively settled it into the sand besides her when she'd first collapsed and Bette had only opened it before falling into her stupor. It was her wallet, the outside still damp from where Patty explained it had been perched on a crop of rocks, the mist of waves settling over it.

The water stained image of Bette surrounded by family peered up at her. The remains of thanksgiving dinner laying in the background on a table. Her mother's smile was soft, her arm curved around Bette's grinning father. Bette was planting a sloppy kiss on the fringe of her puppy's forehead as she stood in front of her parents. Even her Aunt Kathy was there, punching Bette's father playfully in the arm.

The girl sighed, her consciousness drifting off to flit through memories of Christmas's and birthdays alongside those she cared about. Without thinking she let the plastic bottle slip from her hold and fall into the sand, freeing her hand. Her thumb carefully traced the ink detailing her mother's likeness. They had always been closer than most. Bette rarely left her side for more than the time it would take to attend a sleepover, and she didn't feel the urge for any teenage rebellion.

Now she was stuck on an island. The salty wind tugging at her ratty uniform and flattened, stringy hair. Only the promise of work and enduring in her future.

A sudden wave of unchecked emotion snaked its way around her in a burning headache. She remembered when her goldfish died as a kid. She'd sobbed and explained vehemently to her mother that she didn't think it was possible for her to ever get over it. And she hadn't had a fish since. The absolute certainty that it had been her fault the golden body drifted lifelessly through the clear water and plastic vegetation preventing her from forming any kind of affection for another.

She had always hated the memory of Goldie, feeling as though that was her first experience with guilt, loss, and emotional pain.

But now she knew. She never _had_ felt pain. Never knew that it could be so stifling and unavoidable and _overwhelming_.

She shuddered, blinking desperately against the moisture gathering threateningly in the corner of her eyes. A lump slowly grew in her throat, choking her.

The wallet tumbled from her lap as her hand reached up to seize her shirt collar, tugging the tight design away from her neck. It didn't help. The pressure grew and she found herself gasping for breath, trying to alleviate what was no longer discomfort, but a strangling sensation.

The image of Mr. Robinson, neck mangled and left on the ground, was seared into her eyes, overlaying the view of the ocean. Dick Grayson's wild expression as he ordered then out of the line of fire, fists clenched as he faced the collection of massive individual men flitted across her view.

Bette felt the pressure of someone's gaze on her, but she didn't have time to pursue the issue. Instead, she let out a breath, feeling it shake and quiver as it forced it's way through her clogged throat.

Dick and Mr. Robinson were gone. Their number's added to the rest of the classmates lying dead in the sand within walking distance. Bette was stranded on an island. Her arm was slashed up, a cut ran across her nose, her lip throbbed whenever she spoke, and one eye was swollen and her vision was blurry to that side.

She missed her family. The warmth of her puppy as she cuddled against Bette's side. The way her father ruffled her hair in greeting. Or how her mother carefully rubbed her hand comfortingly up and down Bette's back when she was younger.

Tears charted a path down past her cheekbones. They dripped past her lips and curved under her jaw, gathering liquid until they could fall to her uniform, soaking into the fabric.

She choked and spluttered in misery. Then, she started when something applied pressure to her shoulder.

Bette whirled around in a pathetic crawling gesture. Her wallet tumbled onto the ragged jacket she was sitting on.

Jason stood there, frozen. His hand still hovered in the air where it had been placed so hesitantly on her shoulder moments before. "Uh, sorry?" His confusion didn't melt when he saw the moisture on her cheeks, it was just obscured with worry and something else Bette didn't quite know the name for.

A rough hiccup tore itself from her chest.

"Bette-ba-" He stopped, shaking his head and plopping down into the sand beside her with a sigh. Watching him stare enraptured at her was a little embarrassing but Bette was too distraught to give it much thought.

"Hey, um, come here." Bette surged forward, curling into the space between his welcoming arm and chest. She didn't care that it was Jason, the boy who flirted with any girl who moved. She didn't care that the rest of her class was milling around the clearing, or that she was sobbing in front of a boy like she hadn't done since she was a little kid.

She just wanted a hug.

More than wanted, she _ached_ for it. For any sort of physical affection. For _reassurance_.

Like an insatiable desire that would keep gnawing away at her until there was nothing left but dust drifting through the ocean spray.

And she didn't have her mom. Or her dad. Or her aunt. Or even any of the comforts of home, like the mint chocolate chip ice and worn hand-knitted blanket that got her through the tougher moments of life.

Jason carefully rubbed his hand up and down her arm. "It's okay, you'll be okay." He murmured stiffly in her ear.

It _wasn't_ okay. Not even close, because people were _dead_. Friends were dead. She would _never_ be okay.

She squeezed her eyes shut, melting into the embrace and trying to ignore the despair. "I kn-know." She gasped, sucking in deep breaths of air to control her sporadic breathing. "I-I know."

But Bette was lying.

After a moment of just relaxing into his hold she noticed Jason wasn't asking why she was crying, and realized it was obvious why. She should be asking why he _wasn't_ crying if anything.

They sat in silence as she tried to breath through the hiccups and gasps.

One of their classmates cursed loudly from the other end of the clearing and Bette finally looked up to examine their surroundings. Avery, Elijah, and Thomas stiffly worked on the shelter, fingers swiftly connecting vegetation and scraps of fabric into a structure.

Riley and Lizzie had calmed down from where they sat curled together, just rocking back and forth in a cluster of limbs. Cameron was sitting against a tree trunk. Bette couldn't see his expression, he was digging the heal of his palm into his cheekbones, letting his fingers fold over his eyelids and his nails scrape through his bright red hair.

Cole was also leaning against a tree, with Lindsey snuggled into his chest like a skinny teddy bear. But it was different with them. Cameron was fighting back horrific and painful memories, similar to Bette, retreating in on himself.

Cole and Lindsey looked like they were relaxing on a summer day. Soaking up the sun and drifting into peaceful slumbers.

Bette forced her gaze away. She wasn't sure if it was an act or if they were actually untroubled by all the events surrounding them. Either way, she couldn't stand to look at them any longer.

Kathie was checking on Ava's side. Her bandages must have loosened in the run, and bloody trickles were soaking through the cloth. Ava had always been pale, but now she looked ghostly. Practically glowing in the sun.

Pattie was talking with Chris quietly.

Bette had to squint against the dying sun to make out Chris's expression. It was twisted into a hard set. Mouth squeezed into a grim line jaw tense. His shoulder's were being held too tightly to be natural. He handed something to Pattie, and Bette wasn't able to tell what Pattie thought of the object, with the girls back facing Jason and her.

"Everything's gone so wrong." Bette was surprised to find herself speaking. She wasn't sure if she was addressing Jason or herself. "So, so wrong."

"Yeah." Jason agreed tonelessly. "It has."

Another moment of silence and Bette began to realize exactly where she was seated. In her haste to bury herself and her emotions in the embrace of another individual she'd shoved pride to the side and crumpled herself against Jason, leaning into his chest as his arm supported her.

Jason seemed to realize too, because he grinned down at her cockily.

She shoved him away with a light twisting of her lips. A feeble attempt at any kind of smile.

The lingering sensation of choking and the hard pulls of emotion within her chest kept her from making any sign more convincing.

"Aw, c'mon Bette-baby!" He let his arm fall back to the side, as though unconcerned, angling his head down. But...was he blushing?

Bette shook her head, covering up the dusty pink rising to her cheeks by seizing the discarded water bottle and twisting the cap off. She brought the opening to her mouth and let the soothing liquid trickle into her mouth and down her throat.

She froze, welcoming the gulp of water already past her lips. She was suddenly realizing just how much she _needed_ water. How it was no longer a comfort from a kitchen sink. It was a necessary thing that she required.

"Don't drink it all." Jason cautioned. "We don't have much more."

Bette was tempted to just throw back the last few sips, but she caught a glance at the barely restrained longing in Jason's features. "Here." She offered, handing him the bottle.

He met her gaze. "You sure?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure." She cleared her throat, pushing the bottle into Jason's hand firmly. "Now drink, you haven't had any in hours and we've all been working under the sun."

He didn't need any more prompting. Swiftly he raised the bottle and chugged down the last of the water. When he saw the last few beads of water drip down into his mouth he stopped, and looked up at her guiltily.

"Good boy." She teased. "Now, I've had enough of just sitting around. I'm going to find a way to help."

She could deal with some heaviness. Maybe if she got herself moving again she could work it away. Like sore muscles under practiced massaging hands.

"I'll come with." He added, getting to his feet and offering her a hand up. She ignored it. Bette had relied on him too much in the last few minutes, and even if it was rude, she didn't want to need him any more. She didn't want to need _anyone_ anymore.

Her heart still felt like it was made of lead, dragging her down with each step, but she managed to drag herself across the clearing to where Pattie was leaving Chris's side.

Pattie smiled at Bette and Jason, before going over to meet her friend Kathie.

Chris looked up from examining a scratch on his arm, eyebrows raised at the two of them. "Uh, Bette? Jason? What's up?"

"I wanted to know what I can do to help." Bette stated firmly.

Chris looked taken about. "Okay, um, but are you sure you're up for it though?"

Bette stiffened. Cameron, Riley, Lizzie, and herself had reported the events that had unfolded while in the forest, and Bette didn't like the way Chris was eyeing her. Like she was incompetent or damaged in some way that made her unable to help them out while they were _stranded on an island_.

It irked her.

"I'll be fine." Bette confirmed tersely. Not sure if she could make true on that statement.

Chris nodded. "Yeah, yeah, okay."

But Bette barely heard him. She was too busy remembering the events from after they emerged from the forest.

* * *

 ** _Flashback. Bette's POV still._**

 _Bette tried to steady her voice, but was unable to withhold a tremble in her tone. "Mr. Robinson and D-Dick a-are dead!"_

 _She barely registered the thud as Chris dropped a log held in his hands. They'd been working in the sun all day without water and running through the forest didn't help matters._

 _She collapsed to the ground, right where she stood, and Cameron, Lizzie, and Riley dropped with her._

 _"Guys?" Avery asked, and Bette saw how the other girl's eyes widened and her hands went limp as she took in their sweaty flushed faces and drooping posture._

 _"Y-you're not serious?" Thomas followed up. "Mr. Robinson and Dick can't be..."_

 _"She's serious." Cameron forced out, rubbing a hand to push back his sweaty red locks._

 _"No. No way." Ava said. She backed away and sat down hard. Everyone else followed her lead, forming another circle on the sand. Bette couldn't help but wish they could go back to the circle where they were deciding what jobs needed to happen. Or who was best for what task._

 _It seemed like weeks ago, even if it was just hours earlier._

 _A moment of silence while everyone seemed to be mulling over Bette's words._

 _"Was it an animal?" Cole asked suddenly._

 _Bette shot him a glare. It wasn't a secret that Cole and Dick never got along. Mostly because of Cole. Now, Cole was talking about Dick's death like it was nothing. Something irrelevant and detached from their lives._

 _"No, it was...they were...human. But the way they acted." Cameron shuddered. "They might as well have been animals."_

 _"Wait, I'm confused." Thomas interrupted. "Back up, I want to know what happened."_

 _Bette was about to snap at him. What did it matter how it went down? But then she saw his expression. It was clear he wasn't asking out of pure and morbid curiosity, rather he was inquiring about the death of a friend. Seeking closure and understanding. Trying to figure out how to move on and survive._

 _Besides, if they were stuck on this island, they all needed to understand what was happening in their surroundings._

 _"We were going to find the other group." Bette croaked. "After he sent Lindsey, Jason, and Cole back, he found out about me following him." She sent an apologetic look at the kids who decided she could follow unnoticed behind and jump in if necessary. Help Dick out with whatever he was so terrified of._

 _Bette hadn't completed her task well._

 _Bette explained the walk through the forest and how uneventful yet tense it was. She found her limbs growing heavy at the memory of the excursion._

 _"Then we...we heard a scream." She finished, looking hesitantly at the trio remaining from Mr. Robinson's group._

 _No one seemed excited about explaining, but Riley cleared her throat roughly. "We were planning on turning back. We had already found the water." She whispered, dragging her pack forward and flipping it open to reveal some scavenged bottles and containers filled with temptingly clear liquid._

 _"Where'd you find it?" Chris interrupted apologetically. He was eyeing the bottles too._

 _"Like Dick said, we found a stream that dipped off into a mini-waterfall. We collected it that way."_

 _"Then we probably shouldn't drink it yet." Elijah determined. "It might not be safe to consume. Just wait till we've got a plan."_

 _They all agreed, staring longingly at the pack of water. Without the new resource as an option, they were left with a few bottles Kathie and Pattie uncovered._

 _"Speaking of Dick..." Avery ventured cautiously._

 _Lizzie breathed in sharply and took up the tale where Riley left off._

 _She described how abruptly the knife had pierced through Mr. Robinson, and Bette found herself remembering her teacher's body. Discarded and laid carelessly on the ground with blood seeping through his clothes and the dirt._

 _Bette could certainly imagine the scene Lizzie recounted._

 _"Th-then there was a...man." Lizzie remembered shakily._

 _"A man?" Jason clarified, picking up on Lizzie's hesitant tone._

 _"A man." She confirmed. "But there was something different about him. I just can't explain it..."_

 _"I know what you mean." Cameron agreed. "It was weird...there was some sort of quality about him."_

 _"And not only that." Riley interrupted. "Yeah, there was something off against the guy, but he wasn't human. He_ had _to have been a meta or something. An alien maybe?"_

 _"An alien?" Pattie repeated._

 _Riley shrugged miserably. "Well, he was strong. Super strong. I threw this chunk of wood at him and he just...blocked it. Cameron tossed a rock too. Batted that aside like a feather."_

 _Her voice dried up, fading out in the end._

 _"And he was big too." Lizzie added. "Huge."_

 _Bette frowned, thinking back to the group of men, taller and wider across than she had ever seen._

 _"And he thought he was 'a god'." Riley hissed angrily. "Acted like were so_ below _him."_

 _She snorted in contempt._

 _"Yeah, yeah that's right." Cameron said, his eyes glimmering in the way they did whenever he was about to answer the question Mr. Robinson didn't think anyone would know. "He said he was 'saved'. And he kept mentioning how he used to be human before."_

 _"So he's not an alien." Pattie clarified. It seemed that was s_ omething _they could agree on._

 _"This mean there's others on this island." Chris summed up. "And they aren't friendly."_

 _Bette thought that was an understatement. A substantial one._

 _"What happened next." Elijah prompted. "How does Dick enter into this?"_

 _"We followed the screams." Bette said. "Well, Dick did. I followed. Then we found them, right when the guy was coming closer to them." Her head jerked in the direction of the three. "He told me to check on Mr. Robinson, but I think we both knew he was already..."_

 _She gasped in a breath and found herself unable to continue._

 _"The first guy died." Cameron said. "He was knifed from behind through the neck. A lot like our teacher." Cameron swallowed thickly._

 _"Dick knifed him." Riley added helpfully, her eyes turning red._

 _"I'm not so sure." Cameron disagreed._

 _Bette looked up at that. "Huh?"_

 _"Well, Dick was behind him when he died, but did anyone actually see him knife him?" Cameron pointed out._

 _Bette opened her mouth to say she did, but found that she couldn't._

 _She...she hadn't seen Dick knife the man. Her attention had been occupied on Mr. Robinson, and when she looked up again all she saw was those men appearing out of the treeline._

 _"Well then who else did it?" Riley asked._

 _"I-I'm not sure." Cameron conceded. "I'm just pointing out with all the strange things that have happened in this world, this wouldn't be the weirdest thing. If it turned out Dick never hurt him."_

 _"What does it matter." Lindsey said suddenly and Bette tensed. She reminded herself that hurting the girl wouldn't be helpful to their survival effort. "If he's dead he's dead."_

 _"Show some respect." Riley hissed._

 _For the first time since she met the girl Bette thought she might have seen a hint of remorse, but then Lindsey turned back to her nail and Bette went back to ignoring her._

 _"So Dick knifed the guy." Chris said, bringing them back on topic. "Then what? How did he..."_

 _"He told us to run." Bette said. "All of us. And...we did. We ran and I don't know why we didn't take him with us...but we just left him."_

 _"So how did he die?" Avery asked. "If the guy was dead, why did you guys have to leave?"_

 _Lizzie explained how more had come out the treeline, features overrun with the shadows of the forest._

 _"So he could still be alive?" Pattie asked. "Dick, I mean."_

 _"Doubtful." Cameron pointed out grimly. "They weren't normal guys. I don't think they'd leave Dick alive..."_

* * *

 **Back to the future! Er...back to the present I guess. Still Bette POV though.**

"I'm fine." Bette said.

Chris nodded briefly. "Well, it's getting pretty late."

It was. The sun had begun to sink bellow the horizon. Almost time for nightfall.

"You guys can either help out with the fire." He nodded with his chin to where Elijah and Cole were working on the flames. Lindsey sat beside them on a jacket as she pawed through the remains of a make up kit. "Or go deal with the shelter. Avery's kind of running that operation right now."

Bette glanced over to where Avery was ordering Thomas to a side of the shelter to work on the mud and leaf mixture acting as insulation.

Bette nodded. "I'll help with the shelter. You can go deal with the fire." She told Jason.

She really didn't feel like dealing with Cole at the moment.

Abruptly she turned to ask Avery what to do.

And she drowned herself in the work.

* * *

 **Dick Grayson POV (Robin, whatever.)**

Dick gasped as his foot missed a hold that he normally would have found easily. A shock of pain raced through him, traveling sharply up and down his nerves, and causing him to wince.

Quickly, he breathed a sigh of relief that nobody was around. He didn't like it when other's saw him vulnerable.

One of his hands braced against a tree, pushing himself forward, while the other went to caress his battered ribs. Still unhealed from his tumble out of the window a few days ago, he had cringed from more than pain when one of the men slammed him against a tree.

Dick groaned as the cut running down the front of his thigh throbbed with agony. His hobbling along wasn't helping matter's, and even if he had applied immediate first aid, he really needed to stop and rest. Settle down and get his thoughts together and injuries cataloged.

But he _couldn't_ because he had no idea how many more of those men were out there. Or what they _were_.

In all his years as Robin he had seen _nothing_ like them.

So he kept going, trying to reach his classmates, while sifting through the memories, trying to find clues.

* * *

 ** _Back to the past. Starts right about after the rest of the group left. And yes, we're still in Dick's POV. And by the way, he's remembering this, so it wasn't broadcasted to the world. Completely under the radar here._**

 _Dick waited until Bette's blond curls were out of sight before shifting fully into his fighting stance._

 _He eyed the men, counting out half a dozen, not including the body now laying on the forest floor._

 _Just looking down at the form tempted his eyes to wonder, but he trained his attention away purposefully. He could deal with whatever that was about later. Right now, he needed to get rid the the immediate threat._

 _"Richard Grayson." The two furthest to the left uttered in unison._

 _"Dick Grayson." The two on the right added._

 _"_ _Robin." The two in the middle concluded._

 _The dark haired boy watched as six mouths moved. Watched as each set of identical brown eyes stared unresponsively outward. Each man's head cocked to the side at the very same time._

 _It reminded him of the horror movies Wally always convinced him to watch with him. Most of the time those occasions were followed by a night of Dick dealing with a nervous speedster turning around to fast and breaking half the stuff in whatever room they were in._

 _To say the least, it didn't feel real at all. Dick shook his head, trying to separate fonder memories from the precarious situation he was dealing with at the moment._

 _He hefted the knife. These guys had just said_ ** _Robin_** _. They **knew** his secret identity._

 _What was he supposed to do? Play stupid? Start fighting like normal? Run away?_

 _He didn't have a chance to choose, because they started to talk again._

 _"You have forty-eight hours." Each one of them withdrew something from their pocket and flung it toward the ground. Robin squinted at them quickly, heart thudding violently in his chest. They were bird-a-rang's, sticking out of the ground._

 _"What do you mean?" Robin growled. He didn't expect an answer. There were some 'super villains' (as Wally put it) that would reel off their entire plan if you asked once, and that strategy of interrogation had saved him and the team or Batman multiple long nights. These guys, however, didn't seem to fit into the category that felt the need to hear themselves talk._

 _"Forty-eight hours." They repeated dully. And then they surged forward in a mound of mutinous flesh. Faces screwed into grimaces of concentration even as their eyes looked frozen._

 _And then they started to fight._

 _Robin rolled and flipped, avoiding devastating hits and paying back with quick jabs and swift kicks._

 _It wasn't going his way-but he wouldn't say it was leaning toward them for the win either._

 _Until he made the mistake of dropping and trying to kick one unsteady member off his feet, aiming his foot at the one leg baring the man's weight._

 _Robin's foot thudded against the man's calf, and a sharp spike of pain traveled up Robin's lower leg._

 _The guy didn't move an inch, just looked down at Robin with his head cocked. Hair hanging in a curtain, and obscuring the rest of his features from view._

 _Then the mans hand grabbed a knife from his belt, grabbing it and stabbing downward at Robin's chest. Robin surged back, but couldn't avoid the sharp agony of the metal plunging through layers of flesh higher up on his leg, tearing downward as Robin's momentum carried him back._

 _He landed in an unsteady crouch, hid knife lost in the struggle and sticking head in the ground from behind the nearest man._

 _For a moment time seemed to slow down as Robin drew in a breath and eyed his enemies._

 _One was standing on a crippled ankle, no pain crossing across his expression. Another had a slash running across his face and through an eye. Robin hadn't exactly aimed for his face, but the man had bent down at the last second and been blinded on one side as a result._

 _Two were physically unharmed with the exception of flesh wounds, cumbersome but easily something they would be able to fight through without any substantial effects._

 _The fifth was dealing with a noticeable amount of deeper cuts on his back where Robin had slashed as he flipped over the man's head. Though his pallor was lighter than when he'd arrived, he was still on his feat. Something that Robin couldn't help but think was impressive taking into account the amount of blood on the ground and on his clothes._

 _And the last was what brought Robin the greatest sense of relief. He had been knocked out after a heavy barrage to the face. Punch by punch Robin had worn him down, until he collapsed near the body of his dead comrade. His nose crooked and his face throbbing in a swirl of varying colors, covered with the rivulets of blood leaking from abrasions._

 _It meant that these guys were beatable without any outside influence. Some sort of trick that got by their defenses, because it had become increasingly clearer to Robin. These guys weren't human. Not with what had happened to the first guy. After Robin had told Bette to leave and the man just..._

 _Robin ducked under a punch and elbowed under the outreached arm, aiming for the softness of his stomach and hoping to wind the man with light scratches._

 _A grunt answered the move, but nothing else betrayed that Robin's landed hit had done anything._

 _Robin, however, was beginning to face other issues._

 _Batman had trained him for a lot of things. How to survive an interrogation (or as it was known in Gotham, torture), how to make it through days without water or food, how to deal with immediate injuries in the field, how to fight..._

 _And with all that training, even if Robin knew that he was overreacting when his stomach tinged painfully, it didn't change the fact that he was_ hungry _. And that his throat was begging for the relief brought on my water._

 _Distracted by the thought, Robin barely dodged a punch from one of the men only shallowly sliced up. The fist glanced Robin's forehead and he winced at the possibility of a concussion._

 _Another man managed to land a hit on his side and he flipped away immediately._

 _It was all going wrong, Robin realized. The fight was leaning their way, and he needed to figure out a way to change that or he would die and he didn't know what would happen to the rest of his teammates._

 _Robin launched himself back into a brawl with renewed vigor, and he managed to down another guy, but it was like punching at concrete walls._

 _A glance down at his hands confirmed that cuts were opening up along his knuckles._

 _Robin lunged once more, wielding his newly reclaimed knife, and slicing down at a arm bulging with muscles..._

 _Something seized him around the waist and swung him around, releasing him and letting Robin slam into a tree with an impact that made his teeth vibrate._

 _Groaning Robin forced himself into a crouch and prepared himself to dodge, fully aware of the ringing in his ears, throbbing in his chest and back, and the blood seeping out of his thigh wound._

 _"Th-that all? A grandmother could do better th-than that." He stuttered, ready to block any move anyone made to engage him._

 _But he didn't have to do anything._

 _The men had all frozen, before standing stiffly. One reached for the body of Mr. Robinson, one grabbed their unconscious team member, and one seized the body of the first guy._

 _Robin eyed the lolling head of his teacher. He'd always liked Mr. Robinson's classes. Normally if Dick was a little tuned out one day the teacher would turn a bit of blind eye, and Richard always appreciated the reprieve from extreme schoolwork._

 _Robin's instincts screamed for him to fight back. To grab a hold of the body and fight to protect it. But logically, he knew he was beat._

 _He had run out of steam, and his body ached with the effort of just holding himself at the ready. It wasn't the worst off he'd ever been. Not even close, but he wasn't at one hundred percent by a long shot._

 _So he watched them leave. Head's cocked and staring blankly as they walked backward, towards the tree's at the end of the clearing._

 _"Forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours." They chanted. Robin suppressed a shiver._

 _"Until what?" Robin tried again._

 _"Forty-eight h-"_

 _"Hours, yeah, I've got the message." Robin scoffed._

 _But it surprised him when they automatically stopped chanting together. None of them making any sound besides debris cracking and crunching under foot._

 _"Forty-eight hours." Robin murmured to himself as the sound of them trampling through the forest dulled. "Forty-eight hours."_

 _He sighed and stood, leaning heavily against a nearby tree. He reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it up, revealing the bruising lining his side and blossoming across his ribs._

 _Looking over the battle sight Dick sighed. This entire situation just got that much tougher to maneuver through._

* * *

 **Back to the present. Dick's POV still.**

Dick reached down to reach into his pocket. The sharp prodding of a bird-a-rang's tip against his finger was relieving, even if he felt a drop of blood gather and soak into the inside pocket of his dress pants.

He had seven bird-a-rang's now.

One from the head. Six from the fight.

Dick shook his head. It didn't make sense, why he was receiving them like...gifts.

Rewards for successfully completing a task.

Mr. Robinson was dead, but Dick had to remind himself it wasn't for nothing.

He knew, and hopefully his class would be able to put something together, that they hadn't crashed on the island by mistake. Something had put them there. And something was toying with them.

Him in particular.

It was like they were all in some sick game, and Dick didn't want to be a part of it.

* * *

 **Audience POV.**

People all over were panicking as they watched Richard Grayson force himself forward, one step at a time.

"Will he be okay?"

"Oh, wow, poor kid."

"-look's like it hurt's a lot."

"-younger than my daughter by-"

"-don't think he'll make it-"

"-how did he get away from the-"

All over the comments penetrated the air. People questioning clueless acquaintances on if they knew what had happened to injure Dick Grayson. People asking how he got away from the group of men.

No one seemed to know what was happening, so they turned to nearest screen. And they watched.

For half a minute the screen fast-forwarded through shots of Dick stumbling through the forest. Catching himself on branches and tugging his feet through the ensnaring hold of roots or the strong grasp of vegetation.

The light slowly got worse as the sun dipped lower and lower, until all that was left was the final rays of sunlight.

Finally, one last fritz of the screen, and Dick was pulling himself into the clearing.

Avery, Thomas, Ava, Cameron, and Elijah were working on a the shelter. Everyone else was surrounding a pitifully wavering fire, trying to feed it

"G-guys?" He croaked out.

Immediately, everyone turned around to face the younger boy.

"D-Dick?" Bette Kane asked in astonishment. She, along with everyone else, immediately went to meet him as he stumbled away from the tree.

"H-hey guys." He gasped out. "I-I'm back."

He almost collapsed. Chris reached out and grabbed a hold of his arm, steadying him on his feat. "We thought you were dead!" He said in awe.

Thomas grabbed a hold of Dick's other arm and together they helped the boy over to the fireside.

"What's wrong?" Bette inquired, eyes scanning him to try and find the source of the blood.

"Got a, uh, cut on my leg." Dick told them, looking down at the ground.

They set him down in the sand and a low hiss escaped his tightly locked lips.

"Y-you okay?" Kathie asked, laying a hand carefully on the boys shoulder. He tensed and Kathie removed her hand quickly.

The audience frowned when they saw the look on the timid girl's face.

"S-sorry." She murmured.

"No, uh, it'a all right Kathie." He sent her an apologetic look and murmured something that the camera must not have picked up correctly. It sounded like 'just not feeling the aster'.

"So just your leg?" Riley asked. "No where else injured?"

It looked like Dick hesitated before answering. "Just a few bruises and scratches. Nothing big."

"Uh huh." Bette agreed skeptically.

"How bad is your leg?" Pattie asked.

Dick shrugged and opened his mouth to answer, but he didn't get a chance.

"More, importantly, how the hell are you here right now?" Cole interrupted. "They said," he pointed at Bette, Riley, Lizzie, and then Cameron, "that you were left behind with half a dozen possible meta-humans."

The four students who had been with Dick winced at the comment, and people all over the world couldn't help but notice the phrasing could have been an accusation.

"I got away. I'm fast." Dick answered calmly. "Hid in an old tree trunk, that's why it took so long."

"Yeah, and you're a skinny little thing." Bette teased.

"Thanks, Bette." Dick said in a monotone.

She ruffled his hair in answer.

"But, Dick." Lizzie asked. "Why did you stay behind?"

The audience couldn't help but see the pain etched into the lines of her and the other three faces that were present while in the showdown with the men.

The dark-haired boy frowned. "They would have followed us back to the shelter and everyone else, unless they had something to hold their interest."

"How do you know that?" Cole asked. And suddenly the bigger boy seemed a lot angrier. "If you know anything about what's happening-if you're working with them-"

"What!" Dick interrupted, before settling back with a huff of pain. "You think I'm a part of this-"

"No one's saying that." Chris cut in. "The fact that you're the one bleeding on the ground right now kind of makes any accusation's against you less persuasive." Chris shot Cole a sharp glance. "But Dick, how did you know that they would take the bait? Go for you instead?"

Dick let out a hollow laugh, so devoid of humor it was almost funny. "I don't know if you guy's have noticed, but we didn't just happen to crash on this island."

"Wait, what?" Ava asked. "What makes you say that?"

"Those were meta's or something. Whatever they were, they weren't humans, and that's not something you just happen across in an entire ocean of islands."

"Well...you never know..." Thomas pointed out weakly. "Maybe one of us has just broken a lot of mirror's."

"I appreciate the optimism, Thomas." Dick said. "But even if we just happened across an island in the middle of ocean with a group of meta-humans, we also have to think about how it was possible that the plane even went down."

"It crashed." Lindsey said, as if that explained everything. "It's not rocket science, these things happen. Planes go down, and the people on them are never seen again."

Her voice began to tremble on the word 'people'.

"Yeah, uh, guys?" Everyone turned to Dick, who was looking down at his hands. "About that...I've been thinking...all of this stuff that Pattie and Kathie had sorted through was on the plane, right?"

They all nodded, not liking the tone he was using.

Dick shifted, alleviating some of the pressure on his leg. The firelight flickered over his ghostly white face in the darkness of a setting sun.

"Well..." The camera panned to zoom in on Dick's face as he said his next words. "What happened to the plane?"

 **An: H-hey. Sorry about the long wait. So, you guys remember a few chapter's back in an author's note I mentioned how there was a really obvious thing that I hadn't really covered? Well that's that. I'm not sure if I was clear enough with the descriptions so far, but yeah, there isn't any plane.**

 **Also, I know there's a lot of loose ends right now and some stuff might be confusing, but don't worry. I'm gonna track those down like a cat with a yarn ball. (Don't know if that was totally reassuring...)**

 **And another thing, there's some stuff happening in my real life right now, so even though I'm not putting this on hold or anything don't be alarmed if there's a little longer of a wait before the next update. And I know how annoying that is, so I'm sorry.**

 **Please review and let me know what you think (it means a** _lot_ **). Thanks for all the support, now I'm gonna put an end to this obnoxiously long author's note. Toodles!**


	9. The Disagreement

**AN: Hey! So, like always, thanks for all the reviews, favorites, followers, and whatever else. It's really great hearing from you guys, so thanks for making my day. Also...big apology for the wait. I know how annoying it can be waiting for an update...so I'm sorry if this fic is progressing agonizingly slow at the moment. When summer rolls around I can probably start cracking down on this a little better.**

 **One other thing it's been a long time since I've watched Young Justice. I'm not a huge fan of some new developments and the loss of Dick Grayson as Robin, so since I stopped watching, certain things in my fic might not match up with the series. Sorry. One of the major things that comes to mind is my descriptions of the watchtower. I haven't gone into much detail regarding that, mostly 'cause it's kinda confusing. If I make references to some monitor or something in my fic and you're like 'what the heck if this person thinking?' I'm really not thinking at all. I'm just sort of making up my own version with a bunch of hero's and stuffs. This isn't going to match cannon in that respect. Sorry for that along with this long paragraph of useless words hiding a few necessary details.**

 **Also, I was really excited when I first published this fic and I was really sloppy with how I set it up. (Paying for that now...) So, I'm going to need a little bit of time to just figure out what I'm doing with this fic, because the path I meant to steer it down is getting flooded and erased. Alright imma write now, 'cause that's what y'all are here for.**

* * *

 **Wally's POV again. And yeah, I know it's a bit repetitive here, but I really wanted to show how the team was doing from Wally or Roy's perspective and Roy's would probably include profanity. Extreme profanity. So yeah. Wally's POV.**

Looking around the room, Wally could tell that things were changing. And not in a good way.

Wally knew, even without all the details, that Artemis had a...difficult life before Green Arrow took her under his wing. He remembered the time the team had accidentally (as he and Rob desperately tried to convince Bats) ended up in the outskirts of Gotham. They had...seen some things before they made their way back to the bio-ship. Wally recalled how stone-like Artemis's features remained, even as silent tear's streamed down M'gann's cheeks, Aqualad's leader facade crumbled, and Superboy restlessly trembled with rage. Even Wally, Kid Flash at the time, had felt a numbing cold leach at his inside, siphoning away an irreplaceable aspect of himself.

She'd fared better than anyone on the team in the face of Gotham's grimmer side (with exception to Robin, but Wally doubted anyone on the team would ever beat him).

Wally could still remember how he surprised he had been at the turn of events. And yet, looking at Artemis now...it was hard to imagine they were the same person even if both were physically identical.

The old Artemis held herself with noticeable confidence. This newer girl, she sunk into the cushions of the couch and wrapped her arms tightly around her torso, as though attempting to squeeze into a smaller size. Artemis always had an arsenal of snarky comments to hurl Kid Flashes way and instigate a prompt battle of witty remarks. This girl was silent and calm. Their blond archer was normally sharp eyed and aware of her surroundings, picking out the details and shifting her gaze continuously from corner to corner. The new Artemis's gaze was dull, and her eyes stayed trained, hollow, at the face of a clock.

Wally sighed and readjusted himself in his seat, stretching out his arm to loosen the ache developing. He noticed Roy's head tilt, in the way the senior archer always held his neck so he could keep Wally or Dick in his sights. Just at the right angle where he could keep an eye on them and be ready to jump in should the need arise, while hiding his worry at the same time. After all, as Robin often theorized, he had a reputation to protect.

The speedster shifted. He could see Aqualad rhythmically urge his eyes from one corner of the room to the next, surveying the area on instinct. It almost looked normal, just another thoughtless tick that came with the superhero gig. But Wally knew better. Wally could see the detachment of his gaze. The way the information his eyes gathered wasn't being retained and contemplated. Something was wrong. Everything was wrong.

Superboy and M'gann were also affected. M'gann didn't gape at the rising cookies in the oven with the same adoration as she used to. She didn't bite her lip to contain excitement while she discovered new Earthen traditions. Didn't 'hello Megan!' as often or with as much enthusiasm.

Wally watched as the girl snuggled a little closer to Superboy's side, and he realized no automatic flash of jealousy slithered through his nerves unannounced. He just didn't have the mindset for it. Didn't have a smaller boy mischievously pointing out the interaction from Wally's side.

Even if the rest of the team didn't realize what they were missing, Wally did. They needed their Boy Wonder. Needed their spirited acrobat. Needed their friend.

Aqualad cleared his throat. "The program with begin soon."

No one bothered to point out that the soft announcement wasn't necessary. That everyone was already enraptured by the taunting ticking of the clock's second hand.

* * *

 **Ah! Who to pick...Um, Green Arrow!**

"Almost time." Dinah commented offhandedly. She reclined back in the monitor room at the watchtower beside Green Arrow, both staring at the computer screens with poker faces.

Olive nodded in agreement and the two lapsed into silence once again.

The green clad man shifted in his spot uncomfortably after a minute. He cleared his throat. "They should replace these seats."

Black Canary hummed noncommittally.

Another minute passed and both heroes seemed to silently exist with the mutual agreement that neither would bring up any details about how close the time for the program was.

Green Arrow fidgeted and shuffled his chair closer to the computers, reaching out to prod the mouse and let the courser shift on the screen.

Dinah didn't move, but her eyes followed the movement.

Green Arrow coughed awkwardly. He searched around for a topic of conversation. Dinah was more intimidating when she was quiet.

"How's Roy?" Dinah asked suddenly.

Oliver's agape mouth, poised to comment on the recent weather, closed immediately. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and chuckled nervously.

"He's, uh, he's been doing good."

"Really?"

"Yeah! Flash was just complaining about Wally and Dick making a mess of a job with him the other day-" He stopped. A moment of silence passed and neither addressed the mention of the third boy. Green Arrow continued, subdued. "He was doing good."

Dinah nodded. "Good. And...how is he taking the recent...developments?"

Oliver frowned. "Well, you would know, wouldn't you? He's been spending most of the time with Wally and the team."

Black Canary shrugged. "He has been spending a lot of time with them, hasn't he?"

Green Arrow found himself checking his phone for notifications and didn't reply.

Dinah waited for a minute. "Oliver...How's Bruce? I heard you went with Flash and Superman to report on the search."

Green Arrow's fingers froze momentarily on his phone's screen. "He's about at well as you could expect. Still fighting the good fight."

Better than you would expect, Oliver reminded himself. If it had been Roy missing he wouldn't have been out on regular patrols, yet Bats still made time to race across rooftops each night.

"He's patrolling?"

"Yeah, just small stuff though. Seems like all the big bads are still locked up in Arkham." Good. The less of those wack jobs running around the better Oliver felt going to bed at night.

"Really? All at the same time?" Black Canary's eyebrows furrowed again.

"Pretty much. I mean, other than a few of the minor leagues. I think that ketchup guy is still running around-"

"Condiment King."

"That's the one."

"And Killer Moth is out...and Pengui-wait, I'm pretty sure Bats picked him up a while ago...the creepy Alice and Wonderland one has been off grid for a while...and there's always street life to deal with..."

"Yeah. Well as long as he doesn't drown himself as Batman it's probably for Gotham's best that he's out there."

More time passed and neither scrounged up any small talk.

* * *

 **Bruce POV thingy quickly. Just a peek in.**

What was he doing wrong?

Countless years of patrolling the corrupt streets of Gotham. Each night spent saving strangers from crooks, springing innocents from the clutches of madmen, diving into danger to keep Gotham standing, and he couldn't muster the skills he spent years perfecting to save his son? To save his sidekick?

Despite the agonizing weight of defeat threatening to settle more permanently onto his frame, Bruce smiled. Dick would strongly argue against the term 'sidekick' as always whenever it slipped out. Either by villains, the superhero community, or indirect comments made by himself. Bruce found himself thinking back to the time when an exuberant nine year old Robin told Gordon off vigorously for referring to him as Batman's trusted 'sidekick'. The baffled expression on Gordon's face as Robin stomped his foot to enunciate his point had almost caused him to smile.

The nostalgia of the memory was both painful and sickening.

It wasn't as if Dick had...It wasn't as if Dick was gone for good. Bruce just needed to buckle down and figure out where the boy was marooned.

But he couldn't.

And the truth of that was an inconceivable weight threatening to overwhelm him. A stifling sensation that reminded him too much of a childhood with little more than Alfred to keep him floating through painful times.

"Master Bruce." As if hearing his name from a projection of Bruce's thoughts, the faithful butler appeared from the shadows of the cave and strode closer to where Bruce sat at the Batcomputer. "It would appear we've nearly reached the time for the next showing."

Bruce nodded in agreement. No words were needed.

* * *

 **POV of...nah, I'm not gonna tell ya. Lol, some of you will probably guess though, it's not that hard, though that might just be because I'm the author and I know who it is...**

"Finally it's time for tea,

a little Robin, just for me!"

Grinning madly, the man grasped the microphone in one hand, using the other to pick up a teacup and allowing the steaming liquid to trickle down his throat. He glanced behind him to watch his ally nod in agreement.

It was time. The man chuckled one last time, brushing the crumbs off his green blazer, and began to speak.

* * *

 **Audience POV thing real quick...also, quick note, this stuff is getting out of hand...the annoying back and forth with the same sort of thing happening every chapter or two, so if I have a few chapters where I don't show the audience reaction they're still watching everything unless I specifically note that they aren't.**

The voice was back. Echoing through the world's technology and seeping through the crowds forming around the message.

 **"Bonjour my friends! Welcome back..."**

The screen fizzled and the written words that followed what that man was saying reappeared a moment later.

 **"I can't tell you how _happy_ it makes me to see all your little curious expression waiting to see what happens next to the world's favorite class! Oh, so exciting! Now, without further ado, let's start watching!"**

* * *

 **Dick Grayson POV (Or Robin. Or Richard. Whichever.)**

A few years ago Dick had a rare experience where he went out as Robin during the day.

Shocker.

Bruce had been across the world at a conference, and a bank robber pursued by a squad of less corrupt police officers had strayed into a nearby school in search of a hostage. Dick had skipped out on lunch and hurried over to the school, easily incapacitating the threat without any civilian casualty's. Just a few sniffling students who clung to their teachers tearfully.

Unfortunately, as soon as the robber was tied up, a group of kids a few year younger than himself had swarmed him. Screaming in delight, reaching for fistfuls of his uniform, and squabbling with other classmates, the kids rushed a completely baffled Robin and in the few moments it took for him to escape he had been completely overwhelmed.

Last night had been very similar.

Of course, when they built the shelter, they all knew that they would be cramped in the enclosure. But that did nothing to limit how awkward it was for some to squeeze in along with their classmates. Dick had laid between Chris and Elijah, his body tingling with pain and his limbs limp with soreness, shivering and listening as individuals shuffled uncomfortably.

"Lindsey! Would you move your hair!"

"I can't believe we all even fit in here."

"Dude! What just hit my leg?"

"I think that was Jason."

"It wasn't! I'm on the other side of the tent!"

"What? Jason! That's the girl's side!"

"Ugh, my nail..."

Dick had nodded off at some point, but it had been anything but restful. And now, struggling through the forest alongside Cameron and Jason, he had to fight his drooping eyelids constantly. But that was nothing new. In fact, the sensation was almost comfortingly familiar.

Dick bent over and grabbed a piece of wood with one hand, tucking it under his other arm alongside a bundle of other tinder. His head ached, courteousy of the blow it had suffered from his fight with the six men.

"Think we have enough?" Jason asked, finally. Honestly, Dick had thought it would be Cameron that complained first.

"You remember how cold it was last night? I'm not going back till I'm sure we have enough wood to light a fire the size of a house." Cameron argued. Okay, that explained it.

Dick sighed. "If we do that, we completely eliminate whatever chance, however small, we have that anyone else on this island doesn't know where we are."

"So what I'm hearing, is that we should turn back." Jason concluded.

"In a while." Dick said. They did have quite a bit of firewood, but Dick wasn't sure he wanted to enter the camp quite so soon.

It was busy with complaints, work, and conversation in the clearing around their makeshift shelter. Out in the woods, even if they hadn't gone too far in, Dick had a quieter environment to contemplate what the men had said yesterday.

" _48 hours_."

What did that mean? Would they attack? Was something going to happen to the island? Would they be saved?

Okay, so they probably weren't going to be saved. But Roy and Wally always called him a pessimist and he needed to strive for optimism.

And anyway, as often as he told them, they should have known by now he was a realist.

Dick shook his head. He needed to focus. They were running out of room to hold the wood and he didn't have much time to think over all the clues in a quiet area.

"My hand is actually cramping right now."

Mostly quiet.

A stick snapped under Cameron's foot and Dick remembered the debris cracking under Riley, Lizzie, Cameron, and Bette's weight as they scrambled away from the six men and the bodies splayed across the ground...

Dick frowned that still didn't make sense to him.

* * *

 **Dick POV in the past...also audience saw this from the other angle still.**

 _He was almost there._

 _Bounding across the forest floor, soundless and footing secure, Dick raced toward the direction of the scream furiously._

 _It had to have been Lizzie or Riley. Or...maybe Cameron. His scream had seemed pretty high pitched when that mouse got loose in the science lab._

 _"Dick! Dick, wait up!" Bette gasped from behind him. She was an athletic teen and definitely had stamina in comparison to most, but the uneven ground and the lack of food and water was adding up, leaving her staggering after him unsurely._

 _Dick hesitated, he couldn't leave her alone out here. She could be hurt by an animal, or a different kind of threat. After all, something had severed that head and impaled it on the stake. But at the same time, someone had screamed. Someone was in trouble. And if anyone got hurt, it would be his fault. He let them go off in a dangerous unknown environment._

 _"Keep up, Bette!" He hissed, glancing back, expression set with a hardness his classmates never saw. His eyes picked out the way her features tightened and she gulped as her hands curled into determined fists. She was still breathing heavily, and the way she lunged forward was uneven, but at least she was moving fast enough to stay near him._

 _And just as Dick was beginning to get frantic, he leaped into a clearing._

 _Cameron, Lizzie, and Riley were screaming, backing away from a man who's arms, thick with muscles, were outstretched threateningly._

 _Mr. Robinson's body was on the ground._

 _Dick didn't think, he just reacted. Ignoring the strangled gasp of Bette, pronounced even over the way she was heaving for air, he lunged forward, drawing his knife in midair._

 _He planned to swipe it across the guy's back, not deep enough to cut the spine, just a flesh wound to distract him from his classmates._

 _It didn't work like that._

 _Instead, it was like his hand wasn't in control._

 _The knife surged upward, blade straightened sinisterly, and plunged through his neck. All the way to the top of the handle. And as strange as it was, because Dick was sure the blade definitely wasn't long enough, the man's neck seemed to morph open and allow the blade to penetrate deeper. Skin, muscle, and flesh slouching out of the way just so Dick could kill easier._

 _Dick stumbled back, shocked. The knife slid free of it's mark and crimson liquid spotted the ground between them as the man collapsed in a motionless pile._

 _He-he had just-the knife-Bruce would-_

 _But they were still in danger. Dick shoved his moral dilemma aside, tightening his grip on his weapon. It might've failed him just now, but he still needed the edge it granted him._

 _Half a dozen men identical to their fallen ally slipped from the tree's cover, approaching him and his classmate's menacingly._

 _He would figure everything out later._

* * *

 **Dick POV, back at their present, possibly more cheerful time.**

"Okay, I kind of agree with Jason. I honestly can't feel my arms at this point." Cameron announced. "I'll settle for a doghouse sized fire."

Dick nodded distractedly. "Yeah, yeah. Okay, we have enough. Time to head back."

"Really?" Jason asked excitedly. "On second thought, don't answer that. I don't want you to change your mind."

The trio trooped back through the forest in the direction of the shelter. Dick was irked to realize that he could hear the teens from much further back than he was comfortable with. After all, he was used to not hearing his team or partner at all in dangerous situations. But it couldn't be helped much, these guys were civilians. As threatening as Gotham was, they had never been in direct peril for as long as this. They didn't know how to behave.

"Guess who's back!" Jason declared as he shoved a clump of vines aside and strolled forward, close to where Thomas, Ava, and Lindsey sat as they worked to secure more blankets and fix the one's already in use.

"Cameron!" Bette called, and Jason deflated. "Come on over, you're good at engineering, right?"

Cameron blinked. "How did you know that?"

Bette rolled her eyes. "I've been in your class forever. And besides, how can anyone forget the marshmallow skyscraper?"

Cameron blushed as a few teenagers chimed in their agreement. Dick winced. He could recall that endeavor easily, but he wasn't sure why Bette was bringing it up. Out of all of Cameron's accomplishments in engineering, the marshmallow incident hadn't exactly been the best example of his expertise.

Bette led Cameron over to the shelter, where Cole and Elijah struggled with some wood that Chris and Avery were evidently trying to make supports out of. The girl gesturing and scowling at Cole as he knocked over the frame for the edge of the structure.

Jason wandered over to Lindsey's group to distract him from doing anything productive. Dick glanced around the clearing and his gaze settled on a group of girls struggling by the fireplace. Despite the implications of what it meant for their future meals, Dick couldn't help but smirk at the sight of them setting up to cook.

He meandered around obstacles and plopped down in the sand near a surprised Kathie, Pattie, Lizzie, and Riley.

"So...how's it going?" Dick asked. His gaze was locked on the dented plastic container that was hanging above the fire, it's sides held up by vines wrapped around sticks staked into the sand. "Any progress?"

He politely ignored the way the plastic was beginning to melt. Dripping into the flames. Hey, Robin and Dick might've been trouble makers, but Richard was a gentleman.

No one answered for a minute.

Then Pattie burst into tears.

"I-I'm so hu-hungry, a-and we ca-an't make an-anything at a-all!"

She collapsed in Kathie's arms and started to sob.

The camp was a small place and everyone glanced over at the sobbing girl. They all tactically ignored the breakdown. Pattie wasn't the first, and she wouldn't be the last.

Especially with how much hungrier they would predictably get.

"H-hey, it'll be okay." Kathie assured hastily, looking at the other two girls and Dick owlishly. She was definitely overwhelmed. "We'll b-be okay."

"Yeah, Kathie's right. There's probably tons of people looking for us. I mean, we have Bette Kane and Richard Grayson with us. And my mom's really pushy. They'll definitely have search parties." Lizzie added comfortingly.

"Uh huh, we'll be off this island in no time." Riley agreed. "And when we do I'll have everyone over and we can eat as much beef stew as we want."

Lizzie nudged her friend and understanding seemed to course through them like electricity.

Riley amended her previous statement. "Everyone except Lindsey and Cole. And maybe Jason. I'm not sure about him."

Pattie's lip twitched but the girl still looked miserable. "B-but I want beef s-stew n-now..."

"Well, we've got some melted plastic if that's something your interested in." Dick offered.

Pattie began to cry harder and the girls shot him some hard looks. Dick raised his hands in mock surrender, feeling both upset and embarrassed at the outcome of his attempt at humor.

Wally and Roy would have gotten it. Artemis too.

Riley made a shooing motion with her hands and Dick got the idea.

He stood up, brushing off some grains of sand that seemed programmed with the idea of clinging to his clothing.

He seemed to be dealing with sand a lot recently.

Dick had left the fireside group to go help with the blankets. After all, as talented as he was with sewing after mending split skin as Robin and acrobatic wear with his parents-

Dick froze momentarily.

 _He could remember the sweet sound of his mothers voice as she took his chubby toddler hands and guided them away from the silver instrument in her hands. "No, Dick. Sharp. Pointy. You'll get hurt." She had spoken in English and Dick understood, but he couldn't speak the language so he argued back in childish Romani until his father led him away to practice flips. His cheerful laughter echoing across the area and prompted light smirks to grace the smile of his surrounding friends and family._

Dick swallowed. It had been years, but every time a snippet of faded memory was recalled clearly he nearly staggered with the corresponding emotions.

He walked over to the shelter group instead, struck by sudden inspiration as he approached.

"Hey, Chris!" He called, and the sandy haired boy glanced up from where he was adjusting a wooden post. He smiled welcomingly.

"Hi, come to offer a hand?" Chris greeted.

"Not quite." Dick discreetly pointed to where Pattie was calming down using his chin. "Even if the girls do get that set up so we can boil something, at this point all we have is water."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's good." Dick acknowledged. "But what about after? I mean, I know food wasn't such a big priority yesterday when we were splitting up jobs, but hunger has hit everyone a lot harder than I thought it would."

Yesterday? Dick frowned as he said it. It had seemed like so much longer.

"Yeah, I noticed that too." Chris said, looking back pointedly at where Ava glared murderously at Lindsey. Her hand clutched a needle threateningly. Chris noticed Dick's raised eyebrows and smiled sheepishly. "I sent Avery over to break it up."

"Yeah, I can see that worked out well."

They both turned away from where the mentioned girl was attacking Thomas with a shoe. Dick winced as a muddy footprint was stamped across his face.

"Maybe I should have sent Elijah..." Chris murmured thoughtfully under his breath. Dick cleared his throat and the older boy's attention snapped back to their conversation. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"Everyone's hungry." Dick abbreviated. "So I was thinking, you're good at fishing, right?"

Chris rubbed the back of his neck. "I-yeah, I guess so. You want me to go fishing for a class full of kids?"

"Sort of. I was thinking you could grab someone and scrounge up a trap or two. Avery's pretty crafty, and she said she was good at braiding, so maybe you guys can collaborate? If you can tear that apart."

Chris glanced over and frowned when Jason got involved in the scuffle and Lindsey and Ava started to sew more aggressively. Spitting insults and cursing as the needle poked them. "Elijah!"

The teen jogged over, slipping once when the sandy ground shifted under his feet. "Yeah? What's up?"

"You want to take care of that for me?"

Elijah looked to where he was pointing and sighed. "If I'm dealing with that I'm bringing back up."

"Thanks Elijah!" Chris called as the teen went to gather support from the fireside group. Elijah waved a hand, obviously portraying the message, 'don't mention it.'

"At least he didn't grab Cole." Dick mused aloud, and Chris turned back to the shorter boy.

"Sorry. Again. Anyway, yeah, I guess me and Avery can get something together. She's creative. But there's no way we'll pick up enough stuff for everyone to eat."

Dick sighed. "Yeah, I know. But Kathie said she was good at hunting and I was thinking if we could get a group together we could-"

"Woah, woah, woah." Chris waved his hands in front of him frantically. "Slow down, dude. Think this over, okay? I mean, we were fine at the beach, so I get some people going down to fish," Chris paused, "actually Avery and I should probably grab at least one other person to go with us to be safe."

"Good idea." Dick said, before Chris could continue.

" _But_ , look what happened the last time we went into the forest! I mean, with the whole severed head thing...and then Mr. Robinson..." Chris's eyes suddenly lit up with understanding. "Actually, you probably shouldn't even be on that leg!"

Dick frowned, glancing down at the limb. His pants were torn and stained rusty brown where the knife had slashed them, but a muddy bandage was visible covering the wound. Ava had sewn it up, after all, Richard Grayson wouldn't have known how to stitch up his own wounds. Then Bette had swooped in to help bandage the cut up. Most of the girls had swarmed the scene, trying to help.

And the entire process had been humiliating. Especially since he needed to react to the pain instead of remaining passive like Robin was allowed to. The way he groaned had resulted in Cole grinning and waving at him from outside the shelter (which a gaggle of concerned girls had forced him into). And god...after he accidentally _squeaked_ when Ava pulled the thread through his skin just a little to fast...How everyone suddenly needed to _smother_ him with assurances...

With how overwhelming the embarrassment was he felt it was completely okay to say that was the closest brush with death he had ever had. Honestly. He had been less likely to bite it following a torture session with the Joker.

"-I mean, I wasn't even thinking about it, but it could probably get infected and-"

"Chris! I'm fine." Dick interrupted. Bad memories. "But seriously, you really think you can feed all of us with fish? We kind of need another source of food. We might even come across some edible fruit or something while we're searching."

"Dick, are you even listening? You almost died last time."

 _Okay, it was_ one _cut to his leg...that they knew about_.

Dick massaged his side inconspicuously.

"I'm not just going to _let_ you go back into those trees."

" _Let_?" Dick repeated incredulously.

"Yes, _let_. You're the one who nominated me for the leadership position, well, here I am exercising my authority. It's a no."

"We just went out for wood-"

"You were within yelling distance. That's completely different than wandering off to try and kill something."

"You mean to try and get food so that we have a better chance at survival."

"Don't twist it to make it sound better. I'm not going to let you, Kathie, or whoever else run off."

Dick glared. He was _Robin._ A literal _superhero_.

And he was being grounded, in a camp shoddily erected on a deserted island, by the classmate he originally put in charge.

"Chris, come on." Dick said. And no, whatever Wally would say, he didn't whine.

"Dick, you're just a kid. You have a whole life in front of you and you want to throw it away?"

"I'm not _just a kid_." Dick complained. "I'm a year younger than you!"

"Two." Chris interrupted. "I just turned fifteen."

"Two years doesn't matter!"

"You're getting off topic." Avery said conversationally.

Both boys looked over at her as she squatted down to lean against a tree.

"What?" They both asked at the same time.

"And honestly, Chris, I say you let him go."

" _What_?" Chris said again, this time without Dick's higher voice alongside his own.

"Let him go. He's right, we need food. And he's made it back twice now. Must be our lucky charm or something."

 _Or something_ , Dick thought.

Avery rolled her neck to the side and it cracked. "Ugh...we need mattresses next."

"Both of you are out of your minds." Chris announced. "It's dangerous."

As Dick heard the stress Chris put on the last word he began to feel pretty bad. Chris was usually a pretty laid back kind of guy, helpful and kind sure, but he wasn't someone to get worked up about anything. It was Dick who had thrust the position of leadership on him, inevitably making the teen feel responsible for everyone's safety. A job that was pretty hard on a hostile island in the middle of nowhere.

"I'll be fine. I promise."

Immediately after he spoke Dick almost winced. It was pretty hard to keep promises like that when you were someone like him.

"Chris, come on." Avery said. "There isn't even that much calories on fish. We'll be better off with some real meat."

Chris's frown deepened.

Avery continued undeterred. "And besides, we don't know what kind of threat those men were."

"We know they're _a_ threat."

"Yeah, but by the descriptions the others gave, they could probably just as easily come and kill us right now. And I know for a fact Lindsey nodded off during her and Cole's watch. They could have slit our throats then."

Chris swallowed. Dick grimaced at the thought. Sure, his instincts probably would have jerked him back to life before the guys killed him, but how many of his classmates would have died before that?

"I still don't like it..."

"Well, we could always vote." Avery said. "Let me just go ask how many people want mammal meat in comparison to fish."

Chris slumped. They all knew what the answer would be in that poll. "Okay...fine." Chris said resignedly.

"Thanks." Dick turned to go grab Kathie and another person or two to set Chris's nerves at ease when a hand suddenly clamped itself around the back of his shirt.

Dick tensed, prepared to turn and deliver a swift kick to his attacker when he realized it was Chris in his peripheral vision.

He settled for spluttering and righting the twisted collar. He could feel a little more of his dignity trickle away when Chris ruffled his hair.

 _Seriously_. Did they all think he was five? Two years younger and apparently respect went down the drain.

Dick dimmed the murder in his eyes to see what Chris wanted.

"Just make sure everyone who goes brings a weapon. Er, a knife. Since that's the only weapon's we have. I don't even know how since we were on a plane..."

"You're allowed to carry a blade 2.36 inches short while travelling on a plane." Dick reeled off.

Avery and Chris stared.

Dick blushed.

"Aaaanyway." Avery said eventually. "They're going _hunting_ Chris. Of course they need knives."

"Oh, right."

Dick sighed, and stalked off again, thankful that no one seized his clothing this time.

The girls looked up distrustfully when he approached. Riley and Lizzie's gazes cut to include Pattie and Dick almost sighed. Seriously, it was one comment. SHe wasn't even crying anymore.

"Kathie, we're going hunting."

 **AN: ...I'm done? Sorry for the looooong wait. I know this isn't the longest chapter but it isn't the shortest either so we're going to think optimistically! Not pessimistically, or as Dick now thinks of it, realistically.**

 **Also, I don't know if anyone's noticed, I just did, but pretty much all of the names of my female characters ends in ie or y. And I'm kind of creeped out...I just felt like sharing that. Sorry to derail this further.**

 **Anyway thanks for continuing to read this. To be honest I'm unsure about this chapter. It just feels wrong and weird and written strangely, but it's been a while since I've updated and I wanted to get this moving.**

 **Well, by now you're all probably aware of my obsession with long author notes, so sorry. If you enjoyed this or have anything to say please review. Those are the best to come across in your inbox. I've got a choreographed cheer to celebrate them at this point. (Kidding. I just smile really wickedly and creep my sis out.) SO THANKS AND GOODBYE. (Not sure when the next update will be by the way. Hopefully not as long.) Cya!**


	10. The Hunt Begins

**An: Well...I haven't actually written this chapter out yet. I'm just literally sitting here and trying to think of a way to start it. So, until that inspiration fuse gets lit, you get to listen to me ramble! Yeah!**

 **Anyway, I'm kind of kidding. I don't have much to say this time around, except for THANK YOU. The reviews were great and I absolutely love coming home and logging into my email to find words of encouragement or anything along those lines. It's the best feeling ever, so thanks for that. Well, I guess I kind of need to start actually working on the story now. But one last thing, since I may or may not hold your attention captive at the moment. School's out! FINALLY! I graduated from the school I've been in since I was FOUR. I now know what FREEDOM feels like! But anyway, incoming high school version of me aside, this means for the next few months I'll hopefully have a faster updating schedule! (since it's summer and everything.) According to what I've heard from all of you, that's good? Whatevs, we'll see. Thanks for listening to the babble. Enjoy!**

 **And, remember. Just 'cause I'm not showing the audience POV doesn't mean that they're not watching! And I suppose that yes, I do kind of mean that in a creepy way.**

* * *

 **Dick POV. (I've given up. I'm not writing out all the names anymore. From now on it's just going to be Dick POV. You people know he's Robin. And Richard for that matter. And if not, this may not be the story for you...)**

Dick was having a bad day.

He might have been preoccupied yesterday, but honestly, with a severed head, the confrontation with Mr. Robinson's killers, and the whole landing on a deserted island thing, he had a feeling he was more than entitled to being a little busy and distracted.

Batman would disagree. For the last few years, as soon as Dick had begun his initial Robin training, Bruce's alternate ego had assigned him rigorous lessons. Learning more complex vocabulary in languages he was already familiar in. Memorizing the meaning behind a person's movements and correspondingly proving he could uncover a person's tells. Studying various political figures from the previous centuries. Practicing maneuvers personally designed to incapacitate an opponent with an extra limb. Seriously, there were some _weird_ lessons.

But despite how Dick doubted the majority would come in handy, he had learned early on never to take knowledge or a skill for granted. Anything could come in useful someday while he attempted to uncover aspects of a case, or fight off a group of unique villains.

And here he was. Facing one of the most daunting unofficial missions of his life.

Without the intelligence he should have gathered from the get go.

Dick sighed, reaching up to run a practiced hand through the unruly locks of his hair. Without a fresh covering of the gel that usually held his style together, his hair had begun to revolt from his usual look. It was gradual. The dirt from camping out in their makeshift shelter, the sweat from his scuffle with yesterday's opponents, and the course of time had all grouped together. Leaving him in an unkempt state Richard Grayson was rarely found in.

On the bright side, however small of a worry it had been, the loss of his hairstyle hadn't clued any of his classmates into his identity.

Proof, Bruce was paranoid.

Dick withheld another sigh automatically, aware that his group of classmates was uncomfortably close at the moments and had already glanced at him in concern a moment ago.

Still, he couldn't stop the frustration that bubbled and seethed under his pale complexion. Bruce wasn't just paranoid. He was aware. Batman, Bruce, _whoever._ He was ready. Always able to make informed decisions at business meetings, or ready to extract that elusive piece of information from Gotham's scum. He recognized clues everyone else overlooked. Tracked down leads others would scoff at.

Dick would like to say he was the same. And yeah, to a normal person he probably seemed like it. Robin must've looked like he had everything together. But Dick knew the truth. Robin wasn't, and never would be, as good as Batman.

And the evidence was right in front of him. Randomly spewing from the ground, flower face's tilted towards the waning sun in relaxed innocence. Snow white petals almost unnaturally unblemished. Dark green under leaves framing the white specks that shone under the sky's touch.

A gardenia.

The shrub sprouted cockily from the outskirts of an oak tree's shadow.

Which Dick confirms, thinking back to lazy afternoons scrolling through Wikipedia and other risky floral sights (you never know with plant enthusiasts), is not probable.

Oak trees do not grow on Hawaii.

Gardenia's do.

And yeah, they grow in other places too. So, Dick's sure he could find them on some Pacific islands. But you don't find many combinations of Oak trees and Gardenia's.

With a steady eye Dick begins to actively analyze his surroundings. He eyes insects that he can't remember the name of. He's not _perfect_. He doesn't know the exact area to find every species that currently or previously exists. But he's sure some of the bugs belong well away from an island in the middle of the ocean.

He eyes a beetle suspiciously. It looks uncannily similar to one he knows should only flourish in certain deserts.

Consider his interest peeked.

As he examines a cluster of mushrooms from afar, he internally berates himself.

How could he have been so stupid? Bruce would have picked up on the varying of species a minute into strolling through his new surroundings. Dick didn't realize until his second day. He bites his lip, imagining the prickling protest to be the slight punishment for messing up so badly. Robin was specifically trained to pick up on these things. He should have analyzed this like second nature. He should have realized. Should have noticed something was definitely wrong and worked to actively fix it. He most definitely should have been suspicious, at least. After all, he knew the plane was gone. He knew there were half a dozen assailants yesterday. He knew that their plane _fell_ from the freaking s _ky_.

And yes, he's aware that this type of thing did tend to happen in plane crashes.

But what were the odds that it would be _his_ plane? _Their_ plane that fell?

Dick leaves that line of thought before he can actually begin the equations to figure it out. He honestly didn't want to know the odds unless Wally or Roy were in the plane with him and he could tease them with the statistics.

Dick shook his head again. What was wrong with him today? And yesterday? He normally prided himself in his mental ability. He was a hacker after all. But it was like all his memories and senses were loose and spinning around unhelpfully. Trying to tear apart any representation of his normal train of thought. Dick clenched his fist. Feeling his nails dig into his palm. Good. The pain was grounding him. Bringing him back to a reality where he could struggle through his knowledge a little easier.

He lined the clues up.

Barely noticing as Kathie stumbled beside him, Dick escaped further into his mental state. Ignoring the voice in the back of his head reminding him to stay semi-aware of his surroundings. Dick pushed the British caution away, trying to ignore the tinging pain that came with hearing the familiar accent and the memory of who it belonged too. He needed to understand. That meant focusing.

The plane crashed. The plane vanished. His belt was missing. Bruce hadn't tracked him down yet. All the vegetation was clearly messed up. Mr. Robinson was killed. By those...things. A half a dozen humanoid beings that were definitely something new. He had 48 hours. Then an unknown variable would occur. Rear it's unknown head. His bird-a-rangs were being returned in suspicious ways. From the fight. And from the...

Dick blinked.

The head. The decomposing portion of a person that sat abandoned in another point in the forest. Dick swallowed at the thought of his hand plunging through the flesh and gore to seize his weapon of choice.

Everything had rushed by so fast the last few days he had completely missed a chance to break down everything he noticed around the head.

Wait. That wasn't right. They had only been on the island two days. Not enough time to think of as 'the last few days'.

Dick blames his dehydrated and hungry self. Something else Bruce wouldn't have a problem with.

He thinks once again about the head. The way the features were positioned on the face...

But it doesn't help him much. The memory is garbled and confused by the adrenaline and unsettled wriggling in his stomach from his time around the head itself. And the process of finding his weapon...

Still. He can't shake the thought that the destroyed face looked somewhat familiar. That under the damage Dick might have an actual idea of who the head belonged to originally.

"...Dick?" He looked up at the sound of his name. Warped by the nervous tremble of a feminine voice he automatically associates with Kathie.

"Yeah?" He hides his annoyance at the interruption. Kathie didn't know he was pursuing leads on their situation. "What's up?"

It's just then that he really tuned back into their situation.

Avery stood, with an arm crossed over her chest and expression pinched, further along in the woods. He other arm still had bandages roping around various puncture wounds from their arrival. With fingers tied carefully in cloth to steady them. Thomas hesitated directly in front of her. Obviously uncomfortable with how close he'd stopped to the girl, but unsure if moving would make it more awkward or relieve him of his anxiety.

Yes. Dick decided quickly. By the way Avery swallowed thickly, it would definitely be better to move away right then.

Kathie stood before Dick himself. Her amber eyes flitted around his frame hesitantly as she reached up to tuck an oily strand of dirty blond hair behind her ear. "Are you o-okay Dick?"

He looked down.

His legs were frozen. His forearm pushed against a nearby tree, taking his weight. Dick staggered back, startling Kathie and sending her skidding backward like a frightened deer escaping a headlight.

"Yeah. Sorry. I'm good." He placated hastily. Seriously, what was he doing? Getting so far away from his awareness when they were in enemy territory. It was unprofessional. He hadn't made a mistake like that since he was nine. And even then. It was just one mistake.

Because one mistake was all it took when you worked with Batman.

"If y-you're s-sure..." Kathie agreed dubiously, looking back to make eye contact with Avery. Who's eyebrows furrowed together as they scanned Dick for a reason for his sudden unsteadiness. He fought the urge to roll his eyes and failed. Finding solace in realizing Thomas was doing the same.

"Let's just go." Thomas said. Dick nodded in agreement, following as Thomas finally stepped around Avery and continued to tread over the mismatched ground of the forest. Different plants and insects that Dick now realized belonged to different countries and regions coexisting in a strange puzzle.

"So, Kathie. You're our expert now." Avery looked back and grinned at the shorter girl confidently. Her slightly overlarge front teeth prominent and approachable to her shy classmate. "How should we go about this?"

Kathie looked at them all uncertainly. "Well...It's a-a little d-different than us-s-ual..."

"That's okay, just tell us what you usually do." Thomas interrupted helpfully. Avery smacks him on the shoulder.

"Ignore him, Kathie. Just tell us whatever you would do."

"That's exactly what I just said." Thomas muttered mutinously. Avery hits him again.

Dick doesn't point out that their bickering is putting Kathie off even further. Instead he let's the scene play out. Resigned to the antics of his classmates.

"W-well...I, um, I usually have my g-gun-"

"Oops. No can do. Guess we're out of luck." Thomas frowns comically deep, as both Avery and Dick stare at him in exasperation. "What?"

"Never mind." Avery grumbles, looking dangerously close to hitting Thomas somewhere a lot more important that his shoulder. The way her vivid green eyes glare at his nose is slightly worrying.

They all look back to Kathie expectantly and she scuffs the dirt with her shoe. "W-we don't have g-guns. B-but if we use our kn-nives, we sh-should be able t-to hunt in a different way..."

She trails back unsurely, looking at their surroundings as they stroll through the woods in a meandering speed.

"Hey, wait." Thomas said suddenly. No one stopped walking. "Kathie, we live in _Gotham_. How do you even hunt?"

Kathie blushed. "Well, usually me and my, um, grandfather went out to a d-different state to find someone who'd let us g-go out on their land..."

"How would you-" Pinned under Avery's glare, Thomas's question dissipated into the air.

"A-and then we normally wait out for g-game to, um, to c-come by..."

"Okay, well, that makes sense." Avery agreed. "But we're going to have to do something different. Something that works with a few inch long knives."

"We could set some traps?" Thomas suggested. "I don't know any of those fancy ones they have, but we can figure something out."

"It would make more sense to that a little closer to camp. I mean, even with all the noise, at least we have less of a commute to wherever we set them up. It'll be safer that way." Avery decided.

Dick nearly cringed at her wording as he saw the way Thomas, and mostly Kathie, winced at the reminder to where they were. Somewhere unsafe. Someplace where they could die, or get hurt at any time. Like Mr. Robinson.

Thomas cleared his throat. "Yeah, okay. So for now...what? Just keep wandering around? Waiting for something we can kill to pop up?"

"W-well that's, um, that's one option..." Kathie allowed. "Or we c-could hunker d-down and, um, wait for an animal to c-come by..."

"Wait it out..." Avery mused, stumbling over a rough patch of tangled vines.

"Sounds boring." Thomas pointed out.

"Sounds _practical_." Avery argued.

Thomas sighed, and turned towards Dick decidedly. "What about you? You've been pretty quiet over there, Richard. What do you think?"

Dick sighed. "It's up to the group. Not just me."

"No, Thomas is kind of right." Avery realized. "You wanted to go hunting, and we all agreed. But this was your idea. And you were originally the mascot of one of the searching groups. Well, be a mascot. What do you think?"

Dick was somewhat taken aback by Avery's sudden point. He knew that they were out hunting because of him, but to have it pointed out so blandly was disconcerting. It just acted as a reminder that any blood spilled would be on his hands. Trickling down to join the already present scarlet puddle that had surrounded him for years. The puddle that probably now had a few quarts of Mr. Robinson mixed in.

He shook away the negative thoughts because, honestly, they weren't helping anyone at the moment. Instead, he focused his attention of Avery's question. Or whatever sort of something she had been asking surrounded in a swarm of words.

They could settle down. Wait until something edible came by. Or they could keep walking. They might still come across an animal then. Or a recognizable type of berry, or plant. One that Dick knew to be safe for consumption.

He grimaced. That option did sound as if it had more perks. At the same time, the more they moved, the more chance they had of someone noticing them. If they hadn't already.

"D-Dick?" Kathie prodded tentatively.

Dick cleared his throat. "Um, yeah. Well, I think we should keep moving. Maybe come across an animal, or some sort of fruit, vegetable, whatever."

"And what do we do if we find an anim-" Thomas began.

Avery waved his question aside. "We'll cross that bridge when it comes to us."

"A-Alright...well, um, I guess we just keep walking for n-now..." Kathie suggested unsurely.

Dick nodded. "Yep. Just keep going."

* * *

 **POV CHANGE! Okay...Let's go with...ya know what? I'm gonna stick with Chris. Chris POV everyone.**

"Dammit!" Jason let loose a string of curses as he staggered away from the fireplace, gripping one hand with his other. Chris sighed as he watched the other teenager wave his hand around, swinging it up so he could suck on his thumb soothingly for a moment before dropping it level with his chest for a swift inspection.

"What'd he do?" Cameron asked, glancing up with mild interest.

Chris sighed, but this time he couldn't help the slight amusement that tugged the corner of his lip. "Looked like he dropped some wood on his hand."

They both calmly observed as Jason limped over to the shade of a tree, plopping into the ground where he proceeded to tenderly cradle his appendage. Bette crossed over from the other side of the camp.

"She's going in for the kill." Cameron commented. "Poor Jason doesn't know what he's getting into."

"There goes his 'manly reputation'." Riley agreed. Both her, Lizzy, and Cameron snickered.

"Guys, come on. Be nice." Chris said. But he joined in with his group's chuckles as Bette sarcastically tore Jason apart. Picking at all the right places to turn his face red. Chris did notice that Jason loosened his hold on his hand in the process.

"Yeah, yeah. Okay Mr. Goody-two-shoes." Lizzy rolled her eyes."You know, you used to be fun."

Chris frowned. "Well how much fun should we even be having when we're in this mess?"

He regretted it as soon as the words met open air.

Cameron swallowed thickly, looking guiltily into the distance as though recalling an unsavory event. Lizzy glared at him, while Riley glanced down at the ground awkwardly.

"Sorry. You're right. We should just act like we're in the military or something. Be as emphatic as Batman. That's how we're going to get through this." Lizzy said dryly, her words tearing through Chris. "Honestly what was I thinking."

She stalked off, easing up on the weight she put on her twisted ankle.

"Wait!" Chris called after her. "Lizzy, seriously. I didn't mean it like that-"

He got up, planning to go after the girl.

"I wouldn't if I were you." Riley recommended. Chris glanced over. Riley rubbed a hand unconsciously over her bandaged arm. Where something had sliced through the day before. "She needs some time to cool down."

"I didn't mean to-I just-" Chris shook his head. It was his job to _lead_. To inspire placidity and hope, but here he was dragging his friend's thoughts into a negative abyss.

"Yeah, I know." Riley said. "It'll be fine."

She walked off to where Lizzy had joined Elijah in attempting to fashion more bandages out of clothing too shredded for blankets or to wear. Lindsey sewed their already existing blankets into a more recognizable and stable design beside them.

"Good job, dude." Cameron congratulated sympathetically.

Chris groaned. "Seriously, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, no. I'm good. It was just a second there, you know? Anyway. I think she's just a little overwhelmed. Overeating a little. She'll be good in a bit."

"Yeah." Chris said absentmindedly. "I guess you're right."

Cameron shook his head, and the two sat in silence for a minute. Cameron occupying his time by fiddling with the shallow cuts on his hand, marks already beginning to scab over.

"Hey, Chris?" Cameron asked suddenly.

"Hmm?" He looked over. The redhead was staring forward purposefully.

"Do you, um, do you think we're friends?"

Chris wasn't expecting that. He looked over. "I'm sorry?"

"You know...I mean, we're in the same class and everything. We've been in the same school for years, but during the last two days I feel like I know more about you than anything I learned in those last few years. It just makes me wonder...if that means we're friends now? Or if we always were?"

Chris nodded. "I mean, yeah, I'd say we're friends. We have been for a while I guess." He paused as a sudden realization swept over him. "Wait, do you think we're friends?"

"...Yeah." Cameron decided. "But, you know. It's just come to my attention...recently...that anyone in our class who I got along with, anyone I knew, I didn't actually know."

Chris knew what he meant. In all the years at Gotham Academy he'd gotten to know the students in his class. And despite how many projects they worked on together, how many afternoons he'd spent at their houses studying, he was now realizing that his classmates were different then how he'd ever thought of them.

His best friend, Thomas. Their parents were friends, and they'd known each other for years but Chris had never realized how different he was from the boy, then teenager, Chris had known. That under his humorous remarks and fun smirks, a person able to forge his way through this ordeal existed. That a teenager who could help tie off the blood stemming from his classmates wounds existed under the image of his ideal friend.

And it wasn't just Thomas who he'd seen a different dimension of too. Lizzy and Riley. Two girls he'd only had polite and brief interactions with before they landed on the island. Chris had always thought of them as strong-willed, fun loving, and smart girls. But now, he understood more. Sure, he had learned lesser aspects about them. Riley could cook. Lizzy snore in her sleep. But he now knew so much more than that. Lizzy and Riley were there when their teacher _died_. They had watched him fall over as his life drained into the muck. And they, with Cameron (who had always come across as a nerd), came out able to function surprisingly normal the next day. They were all made of something tougher than what Chris had known.

Even people like Lindsey and Bette were different. Lindsey had always seemed like such a stuck up, stereotypical teenage girl from all the drama infused TV shows or movies. Obsessed with her appearance and correspondingly her clothes, hair, and makeup. But just looking at her now, Chris knew that wasn't entirely true. Sure, she had complained about the chipped nail obsessively, but at least she had picked up a needle and thread to get some blankets together without getting told.

And Bette was a similar case. She may not have come across as completely shallow, like Lindsey, but Chris had never realized how down to Earth and ready to work she had been until they got stranded.

Chris felt Cameron's concerned eyes trained on him. "Hey, you oka-?"

"Yeah. I guess you're right." Chris stared at the sand. "There really is more too us than I though there was."

"Um, okay?"

The two continued to talk for a few minutes. The line of conversation steadily moving away from their current situation, and more towards how things must have been going in the real world. They began to wonder what newest villain was out of the asylum. Chris bet it would be the Joker. The mad clown hadn't been out for a while, and Chris had put money on his escape over Scarecrow with a few of his friends back at Gotham academy.

Cameron was just beginning to explain his assumption that Poison Ivy would be free next (complete with all the evidence he could think of supporting his claim) when he was interrupted by the approach of hesitant footsteps.

Chris looked back, just in time to see Ava and Pattie stride up behind them. Chris and Cameron exchanged a quick look.

"Hey." Cameron greeted, raising a hand to wave winningly.

Chris was about to do similar, when he noticed the way their expressions were set. Lips twisted downwards. Eyebrows scrunched together. Eyes themselves glinting.

So instead of his fast greeting, he pushed himself up, out of the sand him and Cameron lounged in, and to his feet. "What's up? Cole break something important?"

Pattie and Ava exchanged looks. Chris absentmindedly noted the way Pattie held herself stiffer than usual, shoulders back to limit the strain on her back. He figured that the road-rash from their arrival must've been bothering her even with the bandages. After all, they didn't have painkillers to waste on a more trivial injury.

"Haven't you noticed?" Ava asked in confusion. Chris frowned, taking her question as an invitation to examine his surroundings more thoroughly. Bette and Jason were still stuck in a flirting/fighting match under the shadow of a tree, however, Bette was distracted. He watched as she looked up at the sky unsurely.

Chris glanced up, following her line of sight. With a sudden jolt he realized how fast the sun had gotten around the bend of the island. Already beginning to descend, meaning to plunge them back into the night. It seemed surreal that it could be that time already. Chris scanned the camp. Lindsey plowed on through her blankets. Cole argued with Elijah over something (hopefully nothing important). Lizzy and Riley had returned to the soup they were working on earlier. Well, Lizzy watched. That was probably for the best.

Chris swallowed, looking back to Pattie and Ava. "They're not back yet."

It wasn't a question.

Pattie shook her head, biting at her lip.

Chris felt a frown etch itself deeper into his face and wondered if he would need plastic surgery back in Gotham to get rid of the lasting scowl. "...The time really flew..."

Chris stalked off, leaving Cameron staring after him. Pattie and Ava followed.

"Chris! Wait, what are you doing?" Ava asked as he reached into their supply pile to extract a knife. Unfortunately, despite for desperately he rummaged, he couldn't find one. It was expected, of course. Weapons of any kind were in short supply at deserted islands.

He sighed. "If they're not back soon we've got to decide. If we go after them."

"And you want to go." Pattie assumed.

Chris nodded.

Kathie. Sweet, innocent, nervous Kathie. She could be lying under an enemy blade at that very moment. Guts, blood, meat, spilling out to decorate the ground.

Avery. Smart, capable, creative Avery. She could be struggling to hold onto an unknown cliff's edge. After all, they didn't know the terrain yet.

Thomas. His best friend. Always there with a laugh, a joke, or words of encouragement. He could be lost. Blundering through the woods and escaping the site where his group was slaughtered.

Dick. Young, intelligent, brave Dick. He could have torn open any number of the wounds he had from his previous struggles. Could be scared and relying on the other three to drag him through an uncertain environment.

And all of it would be his fault.

How could he not want to go after them?

* * *

 **Dick POV. Stick with me people. This is quick. We're almost done here.**

Dick was okay with the plants. Sure, it was annoying when they came across a patch of cacti, just to tread by a few dandelions. But Dick could deal with that. It certainly wasn't his biggest issue at the moment.

Unfortunately, he could not say the same about the lion.

* * *

 **AN: Ummmmm, I was going to keep writing...but I've been struggling with this for the last week...(not exaggerating)...so I'm done.**

 **Sorry, guess this might be a bit of a cliff hanger?**

 **Anyway, I don't really like this chapter. Too much internal analytical reiterating. But IDK. I guess it's sort of necessary and stuff. I do better with actual descriptions and whatever. That's more fun to write.**

 **So, sorry for the wait! Like I mentioned in the top AN it's summer time! Yeah! So, hopefully faster updates. Alright. Thanks for reading. PLEASE REVIEW. Honestly, it doesn't have to be much. Just like a sentence of 'It would be cool if you wrote this...' or, like, PMs'll work if ya don't wanta review. Because honestly, I'm changing a lot from my original (admittedly brief) guideline, and ideas are welcome. No promises they'll actually be in though.**

 **Kay! Thanks! Toodles!**


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